#meanwhile most people are like 'huh that guy is creepy and weird. anyway'

[ocegion]

The (unintentionally) funniest things in the very serious vampire novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, in my most humble personal opinion

Count Dracula, whose only topic of interest is his own glory as a warlord of times past, dressing up as a servant and cooking, setting the table and folding sheets among other housework to fool Jonathan, probably while muttering to himself 'it's okay Vlad you're still cool you're still cool' over and over again

Dracula throwing a fit at Lucy's window while in bat form like 'You shut out Dracula? You shut him out like the mosquito? Oh, vampirism for you! Vampirism for you for all eternity!'

Dracula, once again at a window while in bat form trying to listen to Van Helsing planning his demise, and being fucking shot at by Quincey Morris and having to flee like 'wait what the FUCK was that???'

On the topic of how trigger-happy Morris is; Van Helsing going on about all the traditional lore on how to figh vampires and Morris saying 'how about we just fucking shoot him' 'yes we'll take that into account too, extra credit'

'oh lmao it's that bitch Harker, can't believe he made it out of my cas- shit he's got a knife' *immediately jumps out the window and flees the country*

Mina, fully and acutely aware of evertything relating to Lucy's death, otherwise the most sensible character in the novel: Last night I dreamed about the creature from hell that lives literally next door and I woke up this morning feeling absolutely awful. I'm sure it's nothing worth mentioning tho

Dracula's demise being larlegy in part due to the fact that he spends most of his time dealing with English bureaucracy and leaving his mail lying around. like the lord of darkness himself sitting in an office to buy a ship ticket, being cryptic and edgy while the worker is just like 'yeah whatever here you go, next' is something that actually happens in the novel

[sharkiethedork]

It is time

Someday I'll draw these guys, but at the moment I only have Picrews for visual reference lol

(Picrew credit)

Thaddeus (Thad) Acker* (he/him) was a magic-user in the 1800's. (Honestly still figuring out that title I want to call him. The D&D in my brain determines that he'd be a wizard by the standards of how classes actually function, but I like calling him a sorcerer too. And magician has the connotation of it being slight of hand stuff and not Actual Magic yknow. IDK anyway) He was powerful and skilled, and well on his way to enacting his plans for global domination, but died before he could. Since then, his spirit has wandered the earth searching for a way to carry out his plans. This has been hard as a ghost, as he's unseen by most people and isn't able to interact with the physical world to pick up a spellbook to read from, or make elixirs or do, yknow, magic shit. Also he's been dead for a while and well...those plans he had are hard to remember. Despite all of that, he's rather optimistic about his situation. He's already dead, what can get in his way now? Seems like he has all the time in the world to figure it out at this point!

(Picrew credit)

Rory Brower* (she/her) is your average 20-something gal who's pretty sure she peaked in high school. She's in a boring, dead-end office job, her social life is next to nonexistent, and she's long since stopped trying to find much to be passionate about. The most fun thing she does is trespassing on her off hours. Sometimes she finds some interesting stuff, most of the time she finds dingy boring places that aren't much to write home about. And sometimes the cops show up and put another trespassing charge on her record, those are the worst days.

One day Rory hears some tittering in the office about this abandoned house at the edge of the town that's gotta be haunted or something, it's so creepy, someone's brother swore he heard something weird in there! Rory rolls her eyes and decidedly does not try to participate in the conversion, but obviously shows up that night to see what all the hubbub is about. This places seems just as dull as she expected, until she gets to the attic and finds all sorts of weird books and bottles and stuff. She picks one up and leafs through it. It's got all kinds of made up fantasy nonsense about spells in it, she assumes whoever used to live here loved to LARP.

Meanwhile, Thad has been floating around in this empty house for days, excited that he's found all this magic paraphernalia but no way to use it! He's been trying to figure something out until lucky for him, Rory walks in and picks up a book! Fantastic, all he has to do is read over her shoulder and try to find a good spell to read...!

Next thing Rory knows there's a Victorian dandy floating in front of her with a huge grin. Thad's cast a spell on her that makes her follow his orders. He's ecstatic that he's got a minion now and Rory's freaking out, understandably. His first order of business is to make Rory look through more spells to find something else useful, which Rory thinks is a bit anticlimactic honestly. (She's like "Really? Thats all?" and Thad's like "Don't question me right now" And So She Can't). Soon Thad realizes it's getting late, and orders Rory to go get a good night's sleep and come back when she's got free time.

"...Wait, huh? You cast a spell on me and use it to order me to go to bed and come back when it's fuckin' convenient??" [She's already making her way out as she says this]

"My my, crass, aren't we? I need my minion's mind to stay sharp, of course. And I'd rather not attract any suspicion towards you at this stage either, so do see to your prior commitments first. Now run along, we'll have much to do tomorrow! - Ah. Stop, not literally. You may walk if you wish."

Rory doesn't really care enough to try and get out of this situation at first. But eventually it's actually...kind of nice? Thad doesn't seem to accomplish much in his quest for world domination and he's actually a really nice guy, all things considered. He genuinely wants a good relationship with Rory and consideres her loyalty to be more important than just being able to tell her what to do. Rory's life ends up being more interesting and she's taking much better care of herself, and eventually they become real friends.

Some tidbits!

-Rory starts off by calling him Thaddeus, but eventually shortens it to Thad, and sometimes Chad as a joke. Thad doesn't really get it, but he's thrilled that she likes him enough to give him nicknames.

-In an effort to boost her morale and self esteem, Thad casts a spell to make Rory's hair look dyed orange permanently. She appreciates it a lot, it saves a lot of time.

-The obedience spell on Rory eventually wears off without Thad noticing. Rory can tell it has but doesn't try to ditch Thad or anything. She just genuinely likes him at that point.

-Thad doesn't remember how he died. He vaguely remembers many dangerous situations that happened in his life, both mundane and exciting, but he doesn't remember which one turned him in. His story changes frequently and if asked by anyone else, he'd claim it was something big and magical. He's upfront with Rory that he genuinely doesn't remember.

-Rory misses Neopets before flash died.

You can tell how much I love bad-not-really-bad-guys a la Doofenshmirtz and Megamind lol. I'm pretty sure I reblogged that post about villains having unions and put it in Thaddeus' tag. Honestly this is also very inspired by that comic about someone letting a demon possess her but all it does is remind her to practice self care.

I have two more characters that'll interact with Rory and Thaddeus! Their names are Circe and Em, they were originally made for (and still are in) my RP server with my friends but I'm making new versions of them for this universe! When I get a better grasp on their new backstories I might post another dump like this about them too lol.

Uh! Thank you for reading if you got this far wow!!! If you're at all interested about these guys and wanna send an ask or something I'd be chuffed to answer! I also saw one of those OC question posts earlier that I'm about to reblog too I think.

*(I did have their last names as Griffith and Pollard before but my other two ocs' last names start with G and P as well. Pedant that I am I couldn't have that so I changed these guys' cause Circe and Em have senority lol)

I need you all to know that I've had massive brainworms since Saturday about some new oc's and at any moment im going to start posting about them here so i don't keep spamming about them in a discord channel. So this is your first and final warning

[midnightmoonkiss]

If Only.

Izuku Midoriya X Fem! Reader

Summary: Who knew having to work on a Saturday could make your pouty boyfriend turn to petty revenge?

WARNINGS!: Short mention of masturbation. Teehee.

Category: Smut / Crack?

Word Count: 1.7k

A/N: A weird short fic I came up with at midnight because I was bored.

Just To Clarify:

Reader and Izuku have been dating for a long while

They do not live together

Izuku is precious but also a little shit.

Of course.

This type of shit always seemed to happen to him.

It had been nearly a month now since he had a weekend off, a weekend to spend time with you, his lovely girlfriend.

Now that he finally had that time off, of course your asshole of a boss had to ruin the lovely date he had been planning to surprise you with by calling you in to write up a stupid ass report that could have definitely waited until Monday.

It really grinded his fucking gears.

Het whined and tried to beg you to stay home early this morning when you called him and told him of this sudden development.

If only you lived together, or if only you had spent the night at his apartment… maybe he could have convinced you to tell your boss off. He was blessed with a skillful tongue after all, one capable of bringing you wave after wave of pleasure as he made himself at home between your glorious thighs.

He sighed heavily, getting up from off his bed where he laid brooding just to go out and collapse back onto his couch.

He could use some of that sunlight pouring in from the large windows.

His room was dark, curtains drawn as if to hide from the world so he could be all pouty by himself.

But it was noon now, and he needed to come out eventually.

On the brighter side of things, he got to catch up on a bit of lost sleep.

That wasn’t enough.

Actually? Fuck sleep.

He’d rather be out on your date he planned with you.

Gah!

Sure, he had tomorrow to spend with you, but who wants to do anything on a Sunday? 

Lazy Sunday!

The day reserved for people to relax and.. and be lazy!

A day to cuddle.

A day to use his girlfriends’ boobs as a pillow.

One he’d much rather be using now than the stiff one currently under his head.

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, just so that he could stare blankly up at the ceiling fan idly spinning in a circle.

His thoughts drifted to you again.

He wondered what you were doing.

Was it lunch break time for you yet?

No.. you had lunch around 11.

Damn. Maybe he could’ve visited you…

He groaned, flinging himself off the couch, dragging his mismatched sock covered feet over to the kitchen so he could begrudgingly make himself some coffee.

He propped his elbows on the counter, leaning his body down just so he could watch in childish wonder as the tan liquid rained down in a heavy stream from the Tassimo coffee machine he had recently purchased.

Coffee was never really his thing as a kid, but as the stress of his late teen years consumed his exhausted body, he quickly found that coffee could be an amazing friend.

Thus started his addiction, fueled on by his friends, mother, and hell - even you.

Something about.. ‘Joining the ranks of eternal, bitter madness.’

Whatever the fuck that meant.

You���re a goofy shit, he can’t tell what half the crap you say means anyway.

That’s why he loved you, though.

Always kept on his tiptoes.

He could always read people so easily, predict their moves almost to a T, but you? Damn if he wasn’t left with questions every time you met up.

You could say, in a way, you were like coffee.

Something he didn’t know he needed until it hit him in the face and caused him to fall down three flights of stairs.

He smiled to himself as he sipped at his steaming hot cup o’ joe.

That day was painful, but in the long run - he sure was glad it happened. Even if he did have a first degree burn from the boiling hot coffee you spilled on him.

Yeah. That meeting wasn’t exactly dreamish like how most couples described how they met.

Then again, his best friend did meet the love of his life on Grindr, so who knows? 

Couples just like to sugar coat things in order to look good in front of others.

Him? No. He didn’t sugar coat anything. How you met was funny, and it always brought a smile to people’s faces. 

It even made his mom pass out from laughing so hard.

Absolutely mad.

You brought a good crazy to his life.

That’s why he needed you.

Especially now.

He was lonely, and all this reminiscing just made him miss you even more.

With the buzz of caffeine coursing through his body, he felt more energized than before.

He wanted to text you.

Surely he could, right?

But what about?

He pulled at his bottom lip, eyebrows furrowed as he paced around his silent apartment, deep in thought about ways to suddenly ‘slide into your dms.’

.

..

…

He stopped, a sinister smirk creeping onto his angelic face.

oh , he certainly knew how to catch your attention.

He didn’t waste a second of his time, teeth chewing at his lip as he made his way back into the bedroom, turning on his red lava lamp to envelop his dark room in that sinful glow you loved so much.

He stripped himself of his shirt as he sat down on his bed, hand coming up to style his curly green hair in a way he knew you liked from all those seductive stares you’d give him.

This was all about you. 

Well, him too he supposed, but honestly? He wanted to give you a peek at what could’ve been if only you stayed home.

No doubt you’d find him cruel, perhaps respond with hostility, but he craved it.

He loved teasing you.

And getting a bit of petty revenge.

Besides, this was your fault, after all. None of this would have been unlocked if you hadnt given him a major boost in confidence with every kiss against his skin, every praise, every longing stare.

You should have known what you had gotten yourself into.

He let his ‘innocent’ thoughts drift to the dirtier side of his mind, trailing a hand down his toned stomach just to palm his already half-hard self through his boxers. What could he say? He got worked up quite easily when it came to his princess.

For a guy publically labeled ‘The Epitome Of Purity,’ his thoughts surely would prove everyone who thought that wrong with just how explicit they were.

Images of you flashed through his mind, your face so cute and angelic as his cock fucked your throat raw.

Boy, did he wish you were here, doing just that instead of his hand that had just now wrapped around himself.

He indulged for a moment, getting lost in the sweet pleasure his experienced hand brought to him, spare arm flung over his eyes as he moaned breathlessly into the quiet air.

After a few more pumps mixed with thrusts of his easily excited hips, his hand was coated in the precum he always seemed to make too much off.

He groaned in frustration as he realized he’d have to perform his next task with his left hand, he could only hope it’d turn out well and not a shaky mess as it has been before.

He grabbed his phone conveniently left on his bedside table, thumbprint quickly unlocking it.

He entered the camera app, tapping on the camera switch tool so that his face was shown on the screen.

Oh.

Hm.

Perfection.

He looked impatient, desperate like he was having a good time and couldn’t wait for you to join in the fun. He knew full well you couldn’t, you wouldn’t get off from work for another four hours - that’s where the revenge came into play. You’d sit there in your office cubicle, knowing damn well by the time you got to him he would have already finished and started dinner. His cheeks were a pretty rouge, pupils blown wide.

Moving the camera back, he fought for the perfect angle, wanting this picture - and maybe a few more after, to be absolutely perfect.

The red glow of the lamp showered his body in a lewd light, sweat glimmering even on the screen.

He made sure his fully hard and throbbing cock dripping with pre-cum was in the picture, having to sacrifice the top half of his head in order to fit it in.

His hairstyling went to waste for this one picture, but he’d be sure to include it in others.

His pecs were covered in faded marks you had left on him from nights ago, nipples perky and wanting some rough attention.

He gave a lopsided grin, the only part of his face that was in the picture was his mouth, and he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to use it to make your blood boil.

He snapped the picture, and a few more in different poses for later use. 

The end result? A new private photo album labeled ‘Pictures To Send To (Y/N) To Get Her Panties In A Twist.’

God, he’s an ass when he wants to be.

With a dark, twisted look in his eyes and a creepy smile on his freckled face, he sent the photo to you, body shivering in anticipation. His thumb hovered over the send button, ready to send a reply to his photo once he saw that you read it.

Meanwhile, you had just finished typing up a long report when your phone buzzed with a message.

Hope surged in your chest, praying it was your cutsie boyfriend Izuku.

You hadn’t heard from him since 6AM when you called to deliver the disappointing news, and you had assumed he either went back to sleep or decided to work out till he passed out.

You really hoped it was the first option.

Maybe you could ask?

With a sigh of triumph, you emailed the report to your boss, fishing your phone from the far side of your desk where you had left it after lunch.

Ah!

It was Izuku~

You hummed in confusion when you noticed it wasn’t a message, but instead - an image?

Lips pursed, you swiftly unlocked your phone and opened the messenger app.

You nearly squealed when you saw the image - the embodiment of lewd and lust.

Fuck.

Your face was burning red, hair no doubt frizzing up as your face contorted into embarrassment and anger.

Suddenly, a reply popped up - one that made you fidget in your seat as a familiar wet heat started to pool between your thighs.

“If only you stayed home, huh?”

Oh, he was so going to get his ass beat once you got off work.

[harajukudivision]

Alley Catz Drama Track - What Lovers Do Pt. 2

Warning ⚠️: Yandere themes, stalking

Part 1

Emiko: Wooooow!~ ☆ So this is what a penthouse is like! It’s so big!

Hiroshi: It’s certainly elaborate. Not bad.

Seiichi: My dad’s meeting up with some big time producer so he won’t be back for a few days. But you can stay here as long as you want.

Hiroshi: Shouldn’t you be in class right about now?

Seiichi: Oi quit it! This is more important anyways!

Emiko: This couch is so comfyyyyy~!

Hiroshi: Glad to see you’re doing well. Now, let’s get right to it. [they all sit down] Emiko was there anything specific you saw at the scene.

Emiko: No not really. Other than the creepy letter and scary paint on the walls, that was it. My equipment was all scattered and some were even broken. Here, I took a picture. [hands over phone]

Hiroshi: Hmmm. . .

Seiichi: What? Clearly this isn’t a prank. And if it is I ain’t laughing!

Hiroshi: Yes, but take a look at all the equipment. Look closely, anything familiar?

Emiko: Huh? . . . . Oh! Look! That hand mirror was a birthday gift from Ms. Tsubaki! And all the palettes on the floor are the ones you got me Hiroshi. The Butterfly brand, see? The other ones are still in my drawer. And all those papers too?

Seiichi: Those are mine! It’s the concept art I was developing for our tag. You kept them?

Emiko: Well duh! You made them, of course I’m gonna keep them.

Hiroshi: It appears the culprit really does want you all to themselves. All the things destroyed were gifts or received from other people. Plus, the word “my” was used numerous times to describe you. No matter how flattering.

Emiko: . . All this time. . . are they really. . .

Hiroshi: If the b**tard really handpicked all this then it must be someone you know. Or once knew.

Seiichi: Tch. This guy’s insane. . .

Emiko: Ok! That’s it!

Seiichi: What are you doing?

Emiko: Calling someone. Maybe he could help. There’s other people I wanna try too.

Hiroshi: Good idea. I’m going to make a few calls myself. We’re going to need some eyes on the inside.

Seiichi: You two are so weird. 💦

Emiko: . . . Hello? It’s me.

Client: Hey kid, been awhile. How are you?

Emiko: I’m good thank you, but I need a favor. .

—Meanwhile—

Dealer A: There you go. That should set you up rather nicely I’d say.

???: Thanks. Now if you don’t mind—

Dealer B: Hold it. You’re not getting any of this until I see the money first.

???: What you don’t trust me? That hurts.

Dealer B: We don’t have time for your sh**ty games brat! Now fork it over!

Dealer A: [lights cigarette] Show me. Or the deals off.

???: Tch. Fine fine. [throws something on a table] Here.

Dealer A: Pleasure doing business.

???: . . . .

[door closes]

Dealer B: Seriously, what’s a rude kid like that want with the Grasshopper? He’s been coming here since this morning.

Dealer A: Probably for something stupid. Who cares, addicts like that are making us business.

???: [outside lighting a cigarette] Tch, ‘bout time. Wonder what else they’re selling at this joint. . . . . Maybe she’ll swing by. . . .

???: I already got what I wanted. Soon, I’ll have everything. [exhales] You’re a real big shot now aren’t you? Cutie pie~

—Back at Seiichi’s—

Hiroshi + Emiko: I have a lead!

Seiichi: Already! That’s great!

Emiko: Uh huh!~ A friend of mine in Shibuya has a hint, but we’ll have to go see for ourselves.

Hiroshi: Well I’ve just discovered there’s been numerous events that took place early this morning. We’ll have to make some extra stops along the way.

Emiko: Alright let’s go!—

Seiichi: Hold on a minute. Emiko if you’re the victim here then you’re the one most in danger. We can’t just rush out like normal.

Emiko: . . Yea I know. . . Here, why don’t we walk instead. The streets get pretty packed in the afternoon.

Hiroshi: That’s perfect.

Emiko: Ok! C’mon, I want to hurry.

—To Be Continued—

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High Sophomore Year Ep 3

��Thanks, I Hate It!

This week, we move forward by first jumping backwards. Last episode, the Bad Kids found that Riz and Fig were missing. Now, we get to see what happened in the meantime. Riz was in his office, trying to put together anything new on the Nightmare King. We’re reminded that his sword--the Sword of Shadows which he got from the arcade and lets him misty step (also, which he used to kill Kalvaxus)--was made by Tabaxi ninjas (seemingly relevant considering the whole Shadowcat thing). He notices that, in his photo, Kalina’s image doesn’t look as time-worn as the rest of it, as if only the part where she appears was protected. He hears a noise and goes to investigate. What he finds, is a creepy-ass nightmare skeleton person in the mirror claiming to be Baron, from the Baronees (the person he on the fly lied--poorly--that he was dating in ep 1). Respecting the fact that Murph never clarified whether Baron was a guy or a girl, Brennan has Baron exclusively refer to themselves as Riz’s R̵̪̹̄o̸̱͝m̸͔͔̂̽a̴͕̾̈́n̵͙̬͒c̸̣̏͠ḙ̸̃̓ ̶̞̇̕P̸̞͚̈́a̸͉͒͝r̴̛͈͈t̷͓͇̋͒n̸̬͛̈́e̴̮̒r̴̝̃̓ in this mega-cursed, fake Swedish(?) accent.

Thanks, I hate it. 

Riz, faced with his lie brought to life, is pretty freaked and tries to shoot it but he’s quickly subdued and dragged into the mirror. Luckily, he’s able to leave the photo for his friends to find. 

Meanwhile, Fig spent the night in a weird fugue state--almost like an enjoyable nightmare. Most of her focus is on this feeling of isolation, fame, and power--but in a good way. In the background, she’s doing some unimportant stuff. You know, packing her stuff, stealing a gem, trapping Gorthalax in it, and going to Bastion City. No big deal. Anyway, that brings us back to the present with the rest of our party.

They make it to Bastion City and, more importantly, the hotel where Fig is supposed to be. On the way, Adaine tries to detect magic on Sandra-Lynn to try and figure out why she can see the photograph but nothing comes up. At the hotel, they unsuccessfully try to get the concierge to tell them where Fig’s room is. Adaine detects that the receptionist has some kind of transmutation on them and her first thought is, “Magic plastic surgery.” She dispels it. Not magic plastic surgery. The concierge is a demon--which is different and worse than devils who are at least lawful and, like, part of the bureaucracy of punishing people who deserve it.

Anyway, fight time! A lot happens during this fight so I’m going to try and highlight the most important parts:

All the employees in the immediate area turn into various demons to fight the party.

Adaine and Kristen catch sight of Fig’s room number (downstairs penthouse) right before the fight starts and, at the top of the initiative, Adaine goes invisible and runs for the elevator. 

Fabian vaults of Gilear’s face--unnecessarily--and rolls a nat 20.

Gilear (who has FIVE hit points) ducks and covers because of course he does. That doesn’t stop him from being completely obliterated by one punch from one of the huge gorilla demons. He freaking DIES. Thanks, I hate it.

Downstairs, Adaine finds a bunch more demons who are with Fig who is clearly being mind controlled. They have Riz strapped to a table and Fig’s about to stab him with a ritualistic knife. Adaine goes for a dispel magic and gets advantage because of Boggy which leads to her rolling *two nat 20s* and snapping her out of it immediately. 

In a very boss move, Fig immediately grabs Riz and dimension doors him out of his restraints and them both to the coat check where she left the ruby with Gorthalax. Before they poof out, Riz sees yellow eyes in the shadows. Familiar tabaxi eyes. Seemed like she was calling shots. 

Riz gets in a very cool kill with the line, “Tell Daybreak I said hi.”

Fig finds out Gilear is dead and grabs his soul. Kristen heals him up.

Fabian vaults off of Gilear a second time and rolls a nat 1, sending him back into death saves. 

Kristen tosses a spare the dying at Gilear and then kisses full wolfed out Tracker because time isn’t of the essence or anything.

Fig grabs the ruby Gorthalax is in and sees that it’s cloudy--cursed somehow to keep them from breaking him out. Not good. She also finds a bunch of other gems which she also grabs.

We meet Kristen’s new spirit guardians which are now hipster Post-Grad philosophy students in a full spectral coffee shop. She finds them insufferable but is also kind of into it. 

They clean up the rest of the demons and then Fabian does donuts on the Hangman. And we are out of combat.

Fig is a little distraught about having almost killed Riz and brought them all into this dangerous situation which literally killed Gilear--even though no one else blames her even a little. Gilear has a bit of a breakdown which is fair. The man died. They try to send him home--Fig wants to give him 10k gold and send him on vacation--but he is determined to stay and experience things and be useful. Also, Fabian has it in his (and Gorgug’s) head that Gilear must be some kind of chosen one since one of the demons in the fight chose to attack Gilear over him. 

Fig looks through the other gems she got and only one--a Celestial Sapphire--is similar to size to Gorthalax’s. When they bring it out, a slot in Gorgug’s van pops open. They slot the Sapphire in and, through the radio, an Angelic voice speaks to them. He sounds like Owen Wilson and he doesn’t remember his name. The Hangman hates him immediately. Fig pretends to be a cop to get info from the cops that arrive on the scene, doesn’t find out anything useful, but does roll a nat 20 on her deception (come on) and briefly turns the game into the sister, cop-drama show set in the same universe as the Grey’s Anatomy sham-life she’s living, kissing another full adult man. Incredible. 

They regroup at a posh restaurant/cafe called The Swan’s Little Parade. Sklonda calls and, after she and Sandra-Lynn do the mom-catch up thing, she has a quick talk with Riz where we find out a few things about Kalina:

She only worked with Pok on missions between Falinel and Solace.

She was great at going invisible and other infiltration things.

(Note: We actually learned this earlier but I wanted to keep this info together)She looks more like a traditional housecat than a big cat like some other tabaxi.

It’s extremely hard to scry on her. 

She didn’t attend Pok’s funeral.

The last time Sklonda heard from her was 12ish years ago.

Riz only encountered her a few times as a kid. 

Last Sklonda remembers, she reached out to Pok it was something to do with the ship the Oracle sank on. 

They pass around the picture to see who can see it and not only does it appear that Ragh can see her (oh, kinda implied this before but Riz can too) he also seemed really bugged out. Tracker says she can use her cleric mojo to put up some wards to (1) keep them from getting mind whammied like Fig did overnight and (2) maybe make Ragh feel safe enough to talk. She also suggests they all sleep in a huge dog pile for safety which I think is great and someone should draw that.

Gorgug gets a text. It’s Zelda. She can’t believe he left without saying goodbye.

Thanks, I hate it. 

Detention

Fabian for Using Gilear as a Launch Pad Two (2) Times

This was a top contender for this spot, even before Fabian did this a second time and screwed up so bad (nat 1!) that Gilear dropped to zero again and had to make death saving throws.    

Honor Roll

Adaine for Freeing Fig 

Listen, I will freely admit that I have a clear bias towards Adaine. You got me. She’s my favorite. HOWEVER, you cannot tell me that going invisible, rushing straight to the elevator, then rolling double nat 20s (a 1/400 chance) to release Fig from domination right before she plunged a knife into Riz’s heart wasn’t the sickest series of events that happened during this ep. What could possibly compete? 

Random Thoughts

I’ve been trying to figure out the rhyme or reason to who can see the full photo but I haven’t figured out a pattern yet. It’s not that only people who have seen her before can see her because Sandra-Lynn can see it and she said she’s never met her--although I guess it’s possible that she has and she didn’t recognize her since she’s a super spy. And it’s not a blanket thing on the Bad Kids specifically because Riz can see her. I was hoping they’d show it to more people so we could get a better idea of the rules. Maybe it’s based entirely on if she wants to be seen by that specific person? But then why wouldn’t it default to the blank image. It seems (from our limited POV) that most people can see her. Maybe for most people a blank space would be more suspicious than a random tabaxi? Idk.  

Riz forcibly installing himself as Fabian’s best friend and it working is low key the funniest relationship development in FH. I’m so glad Murph and Lou ran with that. Also, the fact that he’s basically accepted that Riz is his best friend but the Hangman hasn’t at all is so good. 

Brennan really just shot Zac in the head at point blank range at the end of the episode, huh? He really just did that to our boy. What’s also funny is that, unlike--say--CR where there’s usually at least a good minute of decompression and goodbyes, Brennan just goes for the kill shot and then peaces out immediately. What a power move. 

Also, poor Zelda! She’s already so insecure, this isn’t gonna be good for her self esteem. Arguably, there were extenuating circumstances Gorgug can claim but you know that’s only gonna help so much since he def could have at least called/texted her to let her know he had to leave in a hurry because Fig/Riz were missing. I wonder if there’s a section of the binder on this. 

For reference, the demons they fight in the hotel lobby are a Cambion, and then several barlgura and skeksis.

“He’s just a guy!” He certainly is. Check out his stats. Hilarious but also, I can’t act like my stats would look that much different. 

I truly, truly cannot believe that Emily pulled the exact same hospital stunt again and it resolved in exactly the same way. This is like when I played blackjack with my brother when I was a teenager to teach him that the house always wins and he hit 21 twice in a row. 

Also on the topic of Fig, her coming down from her mind control was my favorite part of this episode, for a couple of reasons. I love how sincerely Emily played the immediate shock and horror at what she almost did (closed book my ass). I love how every other person was so happy to get her back. I love that none of them even entertained the thought that she might be dangerous or untrustworthy now. Relationships at the intersection of constant bullying and ride or die are my favorite. 

While we’re on the topic of emotional scenes, Gilear full breaking down in the van post-fight was very funny but you also genuinely felt for the guy. It’s been a really long day for the guy and he died like one and a half times. His, “I haven’t experienced anything before this moment,” line really hit me hard. And I think it’s very wild that Brennan set the DC for convincing him to go home at 25 (which Fig did not pass with a 21). It’s very interesting that Gilear’s reaction to this series of events was to double down and be like, I *need* to be here. Seems like this could be a set up for some interesting Gilear development. 

The amount of times I have almost typed Balnor is unreal. My brain stores all the middle aged men hanging out with people too young for him to be hanging out with in the same folder.  

I can’t believe Adaine just went for that dispel except that I can because she did the exact thing with Iris’ wig at the NY live show and I couldn’t believe that either! I really did not think (1) that was a good move or (2) gonna lead to combat (except for the kind that gets you banned from a hotel). I completely misread that situation. Like, it’s a world full of magic. It’s not that weird that a random person would have a spell on them. Anyway, this is why she’s the oracle and I’m not. 

The Barlgura needed a 3 or higher to hit Gilear. He got a 19. Yikes.

“I had to ask.”/ “No you didn’t.” (The crew explodes into laughter.)

Riz tells the whole gang about the Baron thing and tells everyone that they need to stop lying in case all their lies are gonna pop out and attack them. Gorgug admits that he’s kissed the Hangman. Kristen confesses to a group of her closest friends and girlfriend that she is gay. Tracker is like, “Babe, what?” Tracker (and the Bad Kids but in a different way) must really love Kristen because she is just so much all the time. 

Fabian: Who are you seeing then?/Riz:...................No one. 

Ally Middle Name Beardsly wtf is a paranoia check? 

The comedic rhythm of Fabian vaulting off of Gilear’s face with a nat 20, him dying, being resurrected, and the Fabian trying to do it again with a nat 1 and knocking him near death is so perfect that it’s wild that it was totally random. This is the kind of thing that makes you get superstitious about dice. 

We’re introduced to Boggy’s second mood this ep which is Boggy’s mood which is a slightly squinted, “Hmm...I don’t know about this.” Thanks, I love it. 

In addition to considering Gilear might be the chosen one (by who? Of what? They don’t know and neither do I) the half of the group entertaining this theory also considers Gilear might be the Nightmare King (”If you are you have to tell me. I’m your daughter.”). I don’t know if the NK does possession but please have the NK possess Gilear at some point. If the theme of this season is carefully filing away random off the cuff gags and making them plot relevant, please let this be one of them. Also, lol at Murph trying to roll high enough so that Riz has the knowledge to stop the shenanigans before it derails the whole campaign.  

The group bestows upon Gilear the positions of Tour Manager, Social Media Manager, and Honorary Bad Kid (listed last of course).

Fig grabbed a lanyard of out Adaine’s jacket and I remembered, oh yeah, she has a very magical jacket that is only ever used for shenanigans, if at all. Imagine being so magic that you have a magic jacket that you’re always wearing that can summon anything (w/i reason) and you just kinda...forget about it most of the time. 

Curious about why Fig specifically was called in to do the sacrifice and why Riz was the one who had to be sacrificed. 

I hope Adaine just continues to loan out Boggy to anyone having a bad day. I love that.

“Maybe this is one of those massages that hurt.”

Really wanted Hilariel to Skype in and ask about Gilear. Her take on everything is always so funny. She is as crazy as everyone else in her family but in such a low key way.  

Lol at the party being like, “Yeah, Tracker healed me just fine without any 69-ing,” which is truly an incomprehensible sentence without context and still mostly incomprehensible with context. 

Don’t wanna overlook the coolness of Fig rolling double 17s (disadvantaged) to command the barlguras. Not magically, just convincing them she was still in charge of them. Very clutch.

Fabian is so much chiller about letting people on his motorbike these days. He let Gilear ride it. He let Riz ride it. He gave a blanket invitation for anyone in the area to hop on before he did donuts. I love Sophomore Fabian. 

Gilear gets a nat 20 for his first roll! Riz and Kristen got two nat 20s. Fig got one, Gorgug got one (he rolled a second one that was lost with disadvantage), and Adaine rolled two but they really only count as one since it was with advantage. Fabian rolled one of each. That’s a lot of 20s for one ep!

[andersunmenschlich]

Episode 8: Burned Out

Okay! So tonight I get the story of an Ivo Lensik, a contractor. (I sense a haunted house story.)

He gets called in to take over a wiring job for a guy who had jury duty, and decides to take the job and do it in the evenings since he has another job going during the day. So far, so good.

The house is on Hilltop Road, which apparently is a very quiet road with not a lot of people living on it. This means Ivo Lensik is going to be in an unfinished house in a secluded location as night falls, doesn't it? I like that. That is nicely spooky.

Let's see, the house has two floors, doors but no locks, and no windows.

...Why are they putting electricity into a house with no windows? It might just be me, but that seems like a good way to get a short.

Oh, and there's a big old dead tree in the yard.

I quite like trees, especially big ones, but the dead ones are only really good to look at since if you climb them the limbs have a tendency to break at inconvenient moments. This tree sounds particularly aesthetic: apparently it casts nice, clear, dark shadows even on overcast days. I don't know why, but I really like the sound of that.

Anyway, the third evening of this job, there comes a knock on the door. Ivo Lensik goes and opens the door (and takes a hammer, in case the knocker is unfriendly), and oh, look! It's a man in a tan jacket.

No word on a suitcase filled with flies, though.

The man in the tan jacket introduces himself as Raymond Fielding, the owner of the house.

And this is evidently not a crossover, since our statement-giver seems able to describe him quite easily: young, white, maybe mid-twenties, clean-shaven with shaggy chestnut brown hair. He produces the deed to the house, which says yep, a man named Raymond Fielding owns the place.

So Ivo Lensik lets him in, which is something I don't entirely understand. I mean... sure, he's got a deed saying the house belongs to Raymond Fielding, and sure, he says he's Raymond Fielding, but what proof is there that he is?

But our story-teller lets him in.

Raymond Fielding (self-proclaimed) heads over to an empty window and stares out into the backyard, which is weird but I guess doesn't get in Ivo's way, because he goes back to work. Then there's the smell of burning hair, and when Ivo Lensik looks for the man in the tan jacket all he finds is a smoldering patch of floor in front of the window.

...That's some extreme spontaneous human combustion, right there.

And the floor! Is that coming out of our Ivo Lensik's paycheck? I mean, how's he going to prove he didn't char the floor?

Oh. Apparently I was worrying about nothing, because when he takes a couple seconds to grab a fire extinguisher the smoldering bit goes as cold as the rest of the floor, and then the ashes turn out to just be sitting on top of the wooden flooring, which is fine once it's cleaned up.

That's surprisingly thoughtful of... Mr. Fielding, I guess, or whoever burned him.

Anyway, I approve.

Ivo cleans things up and then, as the situation sinks in, begins to panic because he thinks he's losing his mind. It seems his dad went a bit loopy later in life, and Ivo's worried it'll be him next.

Ivo's father, it seems, was obsessed with fractals. Big into mathematics, which I can understand. Math can be really fun, when you're not being forced to do it. But the older Mr. Lensik also developed this idea that some mysterious person who can be recognized because "all the bones are in his hands" was stalking him and trying to stop him from finishing his fractal work, which would definitely be stark, staring, unmoored-from-reality paranoia in our world, but since this is the world of The Magnus Archives, well... who knows?

Aha, and then one day he turns up dead in his locked(?) study with deep gouges along his wrists and arms (made by something the coroner can't identify) and a look of fear on his dead face, surrounded by drawings of fractals (not in blood, though, in pencil, mostly on paper but also on the walls). And this is called a suicide, because of course it is.

"All the bones are in his hands"?

I have no idea what that means, but dang it sounds creepy.

I'm picturing a kind of boneless man with giant hands full of all the bones the rest of his body doesn't have, dragging the squelching, wet, oozing part along like giant, bony spiders trailing a partly digested corpse.

In any case, Ivo's so worried about losing his mind that he loses his balance, slips on the just-cleaned floor, and hits his head.

Whereupon he loses consciousness.

Head wounds do have a marked tendency to bleed awfully. So when he wakes up, dizzy and bleeding, I'm sure it's quite dramatic. In fact he's so dizzy that he can't drive, and calls an ambulance instead. It comes and takes him to the hospital, and yes, he's got a terrible concussion, which I suppose means he can't be alone for a while, either.

At least he probably won't end up at the apartment of a strange man who eats notebook pages... but, then again, who knows?

He tells his doctor everything and asks if he's losing his mind.

His doctor says no, probably not—it would be very strange if he went that nuts that quickly, normally you have to sort of work up to full-on hallucinations, and Ivo is reassured.

Meanwhile, an eavesdropping nurse (an older lady) seems very interested in the story, but (like most eavesdroppers) doesn't hang around to be talked to. Just before Ivo's discharged, though, he sees her again. Actually it's her job to give him the final check, so they get to talk! Which, it seems, she wants to do.

She wants to know if the man in the tan jacket really called himself "Raymond Fielding."

Ivo says yes, he did, and he had a deed to the place with that name on it, too. This information seems to give the old lady a need to sit down. So she does, and explains that her family's among the few living on Hilltop Road, and they know that house.

Apparently there was a house there in the 1960s, and it belonged to a man named Raymond Fielding, who used it as a halfway house on behalf of the local diocese.

Having a bunch of juvenile delinquents around didn't make the neighbors happy, but everybody really liked Raymond so nobody said anything. And then one day Agnes showed up. She was eleven at most and might have been Raymond's actual daughter, and she was also kind of creepy, always standing in windows staring at people. But she didn't cause problems, so....

Oh, and then the delinquents slowly stopped causing problems.

Actually it looks like they slowly started vanishing.

And then there was no one living there but Raymond and his maybe-daughter Agnes... and then there was just Agnes, who by this point was a quiet young woman of 18 or 19.

Okay. Something's definitely up with Agnes.

People ask where Raymond went, and she just says he went away and the house is hers now. Which apparently is the case—the house has been legally signed over to her, and there's certainly no sign that Raymond's been murdered or anything. So she lives there, all by herself, which sounds lovely except I do wonder how she gets the groceries, and what happens if a pipe leaks or a drain gets clogged or something?

Maybe she knows how to handle all that sort of repair on her own, but if there's one thing I know it's that you can't buy groceries without money, and it's very difficult to get money without leaving the house unless you work from home somehow, which Agnes doesn't seem to do.

Ooh, and pets in the area tend to vanish, so people learn not to keep them.

...And it looks like small children aren't exempt from vanishing, either. So long, Henry White, five years old.

A week after little Henry goes missing, the Fielding house burns to the ground. No one calls the fire department, because Agnes creeps them out and they figure she might have had something to do with all these disappearances—which, frankly, seems like a pretty reasonable assumption to me, but that still looks like a fire hazard to the whole community, doesn't it, unless someone's come up with a way to prevent neighbors' houses from catching fire when something like this happens?

Well, maybe the Fielding house is set far enough away from the other houses (and the air's calm enough) that it isn't a problem. Who knows.

Anyway, there's no sign that there's anyone in the house at all, and when the fire finally gets put out a burned body is found inside—but it doesn't belong to Agnes. No, it's the skeleton of Raymond Fielding, missing its right hand. Huh. I wonder if that's the hand that signed the house over to Agnes....

Then people cleared up the rubble and had some confusion over who the land belonged to now, and finally they figured it out and someone started building.

That new house is where our Ivo Lensik is putting in wiring.

So the man in the tan jacket was a ghost. Haunted house! Called it.

Ivo Lensik, recovered from his concussion, decides to do his wiring work as much during the day as possible, and he does pretty well; but whenever he finds himself alone in a room, or things get quiet, he thinks he sees little Agnes's brown pigtails whisking around corners, or thinks he smells burning hair.

Funny, he didn't see anything to do with Agnes before, and... would she be dead now? I don't think she died in that fire, anyway. Maybe he's imagining that, now that he knows the story.

He does pretty well at working only during the day when there are other people around, but as they're finishing things up apparently he works later and later, and one night he looks up to find the sun's set and he's completely alone. Whereupon he starts sweating.

He thinks he's just freaking out at first, but no—he's legitimately burning up. Like fever, except more so.

Now, I'm usually cold. I live in the desert. On average it gets up to around 93 degrees Fahrenheit come July, and that strikes me as a bit warm but much better than winter, because my internal heating system basically doesn't work. That said, this doesn't sound great. I have no objection to lying around like a lizard on a rock, surrounded by heat that seems to melt all your muscles to useless, cozy goo... but this kind of heat sounds unpleasant.

Ivo takes off his coat and his hat and it doesn't do any good at all. He can't even breathe, he's so hot. He's collapsed to the floor (dying, I think) when there's a knock on the door and suddenly he's fine.

He climbs to his feet and answers the door, and it's a Catholic priest.

...Well, that was unexpected.

Oh, apparently the nice old lady from the hospital sent him (and apparently her name's Annie). Aw, she was worried about Ivo so she sent him an exorcist. With suspiciously good timing, too!

Father Edwin Burroughs wanders around and takes a look at the house while Ivo explains what's been happening, and then he tells Ivo to go hang out in the backyard while he runs through some prayers and things and sees if he can't do for ghosts what's typically done for demons.

In the backyard, Ivo suddenly develops an herbicidal mania and attacks the already dead tree with a crowbar.

Which seems... really weird to me.

And then the tree starts bleeding! Like, actual blood!

I wonder what kind of blood it is. And if it's human, would it be any good for transfusions? Could they just go tap the, I dunno, B- tree instead of asking for donations or going to the blood bank? Blood trees could be really handy so long as they didn't, you know, curse anyone who got their blood! ...Actually, depending on the curse, certain types of people might think it was worth it anyway.

Oh, and the tree's got old scorch marks at its base. Which I guess makes sense: it's an old tree, it would've been here when the old house burned, right?

Ivo decides to chain the tree to his car and drag the thing out of the ground, for reasons which are not well explained and make me think either he's got some kind of supernatural intuitive sense, or something's reaching into his head and using him as a tool to destroy the tree.

He drags the tree out of the ground.

The bleeding, surprisingly, stops.

Looking into the hole where the roots used to be, Ivo notices something in the dirt and climbs down to get it.

It's a six-inch-square wooden box engraved with patterns that remind me of that table from episode three (which, after the concussion, is the second thing in this episode to remind me of that one), and it's got a nice, fresh, green apple inside. Looks like it's just been picked.

When Ivo takes it out of the box, though, the freshness shrivels away, the skin splits, and spiders just pour out of the thing.

He screams and drops everything. The apple hits the ground and turns to dust.

Ivo backs off and waits for the spiders to leave before he goes back and wrecks what sounds like a perfectly lovely box, which wanton destruction I'm coming to expect from this particular statement-giver, and chucks the splinters into a trash can.

Not long after Ivo's finished trashing everything, Father Burroughs comes out of the house and, ignoring the tree, tells our guy that he's done his prayers and hopefully it'll help and here's his card.

Ivo works on the house for another week.

There are no further interesting incidents. Job done, he leaves and never goes back.

Jonathan Sims seems to blame the man in the tan jacket on the concussion that happened later, or else on the genetic disposition to mental problems that the doctor said probably weren't happening. That... it seems like he's really reaching here. Maybe it's less that he's an actual skeptic, and more that he really, really doesn't want to know what's actually going on?

That would make a kind of sense: it's a sort of self-defense. He only believes horrible things when he's forced to. Otherwise he's skeptical, sarcastic, and dismissive.

Oh, neat—Father Edwin Burroughs gave a statement, too!

I'm guessing the fact that it's mentioned means we get to hear it later.

Unless this is the kind of show where they taunt you with stuff you never get to know, but that's unusual and so I figure I'll be hearing that one eventually. Should be fun!

And apparently Ivo Lensik was the only contractor who got haunted by the house they were all working on, which is interesting. I wonder why? Was it just because he was the only one who stayed late? Or maybe he was the first one to stay late, or the only one to let in an ID-less stranger waving an old deed and claiming to be Raymond Fielding, or...?

Who knows.

Mr. Sims's assistants have apparently done a ton of work in research, as usual.

Martin couldn't figure out who built the old house, but the earliest records it turns up it show it being bought by Raymond Fielding's grandfather (Walter Fielding). Then it was inherited by his father (Alfred Fielding), and then by him. But there's no record that it was ever an official halfway house. Maybe he was running it illegally. Maybe that record got lost. No way to know.

Tim got an interview with the nice old nurse, Anna Kasuma, but didn't get any new info.

One of the residents of Hilltop Road did provide a photo of the old house in flames, which means that while nobody called the fire department, at least one person was taking pictures. This strikes me as extremely human.

The obit for Raymond Fielding said he worked with juvenile delinquents, and died in a house fire, but didn't give any real details.

Mr. Sim's little team down at the Magnus Institute apparently can't turn up any proof that Agnes ever even existed, which makes me think that something's definitely going on with her.

...Ooh.

And on the same day Ivo Lensik uprooted that old dead tree, a woman named Agnes Montague was found dead in her apartment.

Apparently she'd hanged herself, and there was a severed human hand attached to her waist with a chain—a right hand, one that the coroner time-of-death-ed at the same time Agnes Montague died, which makes no sense from a natural perspective but suggests some interesting things from an unnatural one.

What do you want to bet it was the ghost of Raymond Fielding that made Ivo Lensik uproot that old tree?

Oh, and Agnes Montague passed as only 26.

You know, if you're going to tie your life force to something, maybe don't pick a tree? It's as bad as a secret painting that you have to hide in a secret room of your house to prevent people from seeing how old and evil you're actually getting.

What would I tie mine to? Uh... hmm. I think maybe entropy. A painting never ages, sure—a tree loses life a lot more slowly than a human—but the entropy of a closed system never decreases over time. Tie your life to a painting and it'll age instead of you, to a tree and you'll get all its life, but if you tie your life force to entropy, well! That's a force that'll never run out, and if it should happen to decrease a bit... would that be so bad?

In any case, two more families lived in that house since this statement, and nothing weird happened to any of them, either.

Looks like Raymond got rid of Agnes and they both finally died.

This is a really good story! I like this one. It's very tidy.

[lilithsgayadoptednephew]

Holy Hands

Fandoms: Shall We Date?: Obey Me!   Not Rated Graphic Depictions Of Violence F/M, Other Complete Work

Chapter List

Chapter 20

Lucifer was on Earth, all of them were, they had to be. Michael had searched the entire Devildom for every last imp and he still hadn't found them. Unless they had decided to live on the moon they had to be on Earth. The only issue with that was he was strictly forbidden to interfere with human affairs directly. Since the brothers had to be human to be on Earth, they counted as "human affairs".

This did not, however, stop him from paying a visit to the quaint planet. Just to spy on the poor fugitives.

He was lucky to have spotted two of the seven brothers among the indistinguishable sea of humans. Lucifer's closest brother in power Mammon, and his weird anger spawn Satan. They walked the streets of the insignificant town with the human Lucifer was so fond of but Michael had already forgotten the name of.

Watching them from a safe distance, angel form carefully hidden, Michael couldn't help but wonder why this human? Why in the trillions of humans throughout history had this one caught the eye of Lucifer? What was so special about them?

0It hadn't taken long for Satan to catch the worst case of cabin fever. He practically begged MC to recommend someplace nearby where he could read or think or go. Just somewhere that wasn't in ridiculously close quarters with his brothers. MC in turn offered to show him around the town, excitement evident in their offer at the prospect of introducing their friend to their home. As long as he didn't try to throw hands with a six year old or something.

Mammon demanded to go as well. He needed to get out and talk to people if he wanted to scam them out of their savings. That's the excuse he used anyways, the added bonus for him being he could shaparone and make sure Satan didn't try any funny business with MC.

So that's how the trio became the most obnoxious window shoppers the world had ever seen.

Mammon was caught several times trying to swindle the local elderly population by selling them 'de-aging potion'.

"Look, it'll make you young again. See me? Betcha can't tell I'm a couple million years old right? I don't look a day over 20 and neither will you!"

It was water in a mason jar.

Satan was... picking fights. Well more like he took every small remark or slight as a direct insult. No Satan the small child who just said you're mean and your name is evil was not deliberately throwing your honor into question. Chill out.

"Satan what's the one rule I made for this trip?"

"...no throwing hands with a six year old–"

" No Throwing Hands With A Six Year Old, I can't believe I have to write this down for you."

Satan didn't know why he was so touchy, maybe he was a bit high strung because of That Feeling. All day he'd felt on edge, as if something was very wrong.

As if they were being followed.

Michael watched the brothers happily go about their traitorous business in mild interest.

Despite the various ills, the day went well. MC did some shopping to replace what Beel had eaten. Mammon managed to make a few pity-dollars. And Satan seduced the librarian into giving him a library card even though he didn't have any form of identification. They were in high spirits as they made their way home.

##TW violence/catcalling##

"Woah! Heeeey bitch you want somma this?!"

The shout went unheard by MC out of habit, but it stopped the boys in their tracks.

The watchful angel hummed to himself. This was a strange behavior he hadn't witnessed in humans yet.

"Look over here baaaaby!" The boy was maybe college age, and he called to MC from the other side of the street. A large group of friends snickered and goaded him on.

"Are you sure you want to die today?" Satan asked as if enquiring about the weather. MC seemed to catch wind of a danger the brothers didn't.

"Satan come on, they're not worth the energy." They placated. Satan started to back down.

"Oooh tough guy huh?" The catcaller continued to taunt. "Whatcha gonna do pretty boy?"

"You have 3 seconds left to live." Satan stated too calmly as he started advancing across the street, Mammon flanking him immediately.

Michael quirked an eyebrow at the brothers actions, both so quick to defend a humans honor. Meanwhile the human just continued to dissuade them.

The mindless oaf who'd taunted the former demon brothers into the fight reeked with sin. Michael picked out lust and greed as the strongest. All of it stemming from pride of course.

Interesting, he settled down to watch.

MC waited silently for the other shoe to drop. The boys were picking a fight without realizing they weren't demons anymore. Without realizing they were very outnumbered.

MC wanted to summon Lilith's bow, but they didn't know if it could be used on humans without killing them. An angelic weapon probably wasn't made to be merciful to something as weak as a human.

Satan felt the familiar feeling of blood pounding in his ears. His skin was on fire as the coil of anger in his chest wound tighter.

"Oh you wanna throw down? Right now tough guy come on!" The punk yelled, his friends preparing to back him up. The coil wound a little tighter and Satan couldn't wait for the snap.

He reached his target, and was immediately on the ground. He didn't register how he'd gotten there until he felt the throbbing pain on the back of his head. He got back to his feet and saw red. Swinging hard at the nearest enemy he went down fast again. This time he couldn't stand back up.

Every time he managed to get to his knees he was knocked down by someone else. There were so many he couldn't possibly compensate. Instead of snapping, the coil in his chest just kept winding tighter and tighter the angrier he got.

He had no magic or strength to call upon to demolish the assailants. all he had were his own two hands and they weren't enough to stop the coiling. They weren't enough to express the wound up ball of pure fury within him.

Something had to give. And Satan realized with a start that he couldn't force them to bow. He'd completely lost track of Mammon and he laid on the ground being kicked now. The coiling still there with nothing to break it.

##end of TW##

MC watched the boys immediately fail and decided, to hell with mercy. Summoning the weapon from their ear they prayed for something non-lethal.

A wicked golden taser appeared in their hand.

Rushing the huddle of punks MC reached the closest one and jammed the taser into his back. He convulsed violently for several seconds before falling to the sidewalk. The others backed off and stared at MC.

"What the fuck!!?"

"You got a tazer?!"

"They got weapons now..."

They dispersed after similar calls and MC helped the boys to their feet.

0Michael stared in disbelief as the human manipulated the Celestial weapon. Where had they gotten one? And how had they gained it's loyalty enough for it to shift on command? There were archangel elites who hadn't mastered their weapons with such precision.

On top of that they had intimidated those insects into submission with hardly a show of force. The angel narrowed his eyes at the somber expression the human wore as they helped Lucifer's brothers up. Their hair curled slightly on their brow, their eyelids shaded their eyes with a quiet respect as they helped Mammon to his feet. Saying nothing as to not aggravate his injured pride.

Lucifer picked a very interesting human indeed.

Suddenly their eyes met his, a gaze so sudden his stomach flipped up into his throat. Had they seen him? Ducking behind a building he felt something he hadn't felt in a long time. His heart was pounding in his chest. He wasn't afraid, he was excited.

0That's funny, MC could've sworn there was something on the other end of the street. But it glided away as soon as they'd looked.

Creepy.

0Luckily they weren't too injured to get home. When they walked in the door they were greeted with the sight of Asmo doing Levi's nails and decided not to question it. MC called Acacia from the backyard and had her help clean up the two idiots. She wasn't very pleased but got the first aid kit to help Mammon.

Mammon cringed hard as Acacia rapped his sprained wrist. He couldn't believe they'd sucked so hard in that fight, being human was the worst.

"Too tight?" Acacia's question pulled him out of his self-deprecation for the moment.

"Nah I'm fine, stupid human bones snap so easily." He grumbled. He felt his face heat up at the smirk and eye roll Acacia threw his way. He still felt pretty crumby for losing to a bunch of humans, but it was hard to dwell on it when there was a pretty girl tenderly bandaging his wounds.

Satan was beet red as MC held the ice pack to the swollen lump on his head. He was still angry and there was nowhere to put it. As one of the most powerful demons in the Devildom, it was easy to blow off steam. No one dared to cross him and he could easily flatten those who did. As a human he didn't have those options, the playing field was level.

He was powerless to release his frustration and that just made him even more angry. It was an unbreakable cycle.

"We gotta go back and kick their asses." He said bitterly to the ground. MC laughed out loud one barked laugh and shook their head.

"I think your failure here is enough friend."

"I'm serious, I can't just let this stand. I'll bring the others and I'll bring weapons, I'll make them pay. " He growled.

"Satan let it go, we lost." It wasn't MC who answered, but Mammon.

"Give up? Mammon I can't just–" Satan clutched at the air with his hands as he wrestled with his words. He knew he was talking nonsense, but he couldn't just accept he'd never get his vengeance.

"Hey" Mammon crossed the room and spoke at Satan's level. "I get you're mad but you can't win em' all."

"You don't get it! I'm not just mad I'm going to commit a war crime"

"Satan I do get it"

"DON'T INTERRUPT ME!" The younger brother jumped to his feet, his anger forcing his voice to a scream. Anything to alleviate the coiling just a little.

"Look at me man." Mammon grabbed his brother by the shoulders and stared him down. Satan heaved panted breaths as he tried to compose himself. "How often do I screw up?"

"What does that have to do–"

"Just answer me dickweed. How often do I screw up?" He repeated firmly.

"...more than a standard drill bit" Satan smirked.

"Yeah whatever," Mammon rolled his eyes. "And how often do I get shit about it from you guys?"

"Every day since I met you?"

"Exactly!" He shook Satan's shoulders. "I do get it. You feel like you're a rubber band! And every failure and humiliation pulls you tighter and tighter but you never get to snap. Cause there's nowhere for it to go."

Satan blinked in surprise.

"You can't 'cause every time you try to release it you fail and that just makes you more embarrassed which makes you angrier which makes the rubber band. Stretch. Tighter." He punctuated his last words by violently shaking Satan.

"Knock it off!" Satan slapped Mammon's hands away. He had a really good point though. He wasn't exact on everything but a lot of what he said was like he'd climbed into Satan's head and stole his inner monologue.

"We're human now, you gotta get another outlet for this…" Mammon waved his hands in a vague motion. "This energy. Cause you can't expect to win every time anymore. We lost that luxury."

The room went quiet after that.

[orderofthedyingstar]

RECAP: Session 7

SESSION SEVEN

(Hi Danny!)

Rhododendron and Jun continue to eat their breakfast, while Jun hedges around the fact that he’s curious about the angel’s strange request. The two go outside, where Rhododendron (annoyed) yells at the angel to tell them who they’re looking for.

Rhododendron: “Who did you want us to kill?” 

Angel: “There’s an aasimar I’d really, really like dead.” 

Rhododendron: “Why? Are they ugly?” 

Angel: “Rather not say. Look, just kill any aasimar you see around these parts, there aren’t many of them.”

The angel, in lieu of a description, offers 100 platinum to the crowd to hunt any aasimar they see. They make a few platinum coins and disperse them into the crowd for incentive. After the angel leaves, Jun immediately catches onto the fact that Rhododendron wants to help this random aasimar, despite not knowing who they are or anything about them. Rhododendron asks Velanna and Leo if they’re going to participate in the aasimar hunt, but they respond that they’re not going to get involved because it seems dangerous. Rhododendron thinks there’s something off about the whole circumstance.

Rhododendron pulls Jun aside and tells him that she knows an aasimar, a friend she met a while ago and hasn’t seen in a few months. She decides to look around the area on the off chance the angel is looking for him. (She uses her hands several times to count to numbers less than ten.)

OF NOTE: “rhododendron doesn’t know anything about  magic, because all of her magic comes from the earth. That’s why it’s bullshit”

Verrix has just arrived at the Snaketail Crevice Trading Post, concerned about the strange aggressiveness the people here seem to be exhibiting - they’re searching around the whole area, and several people are fighting over a platinum coin. He heads to the local tavern and hides in a dark corner, watching as Rhododendron walks through the tavern door and immediately spots him staring at her. She asks Verrix what he’s doing here but he fudges around an answer. 

Rhododendron: “Are you lying to me? You’ve already done that like eight million times.” 

Verrix: “You definitely can’t count that high.”

Rhododendron tells Verrix that he needs to leave the outpost, catching Verrix up to the situation at hand with the angel and the enormous bounty. 

Rhododendron (to Verrix): “You could really use a shower.” 

Jun: “Rhododendron, when was the last time you showered?”

Rhododendron (as Verrix is audibly snickering): “Listen, some people look beautiful with leaves in their hair. Verrix is not one of them.”

The trio tries to sneak out of the outpost but fail miserably (another nat1 from Rhododendron), but Verrix manages to salvage their mess by convincing the crowd that some random citizen is the aasimar they’re looking for - Rhododendron is also convinced that Verrix really did point out another aasimar. They decide to try to meet Donny (and possibly Raz) on the road between Dynafell and the outpost rather than chance staying in the frenzied crowd of people. They decide to cut through the grasslands to save time. 

Rhododendron: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you read a book.” 

Verrix: “A what?”

While they’re traveling, Rhdodoendron tries to make Verrix tell Jun the story of how they met (Verrix: “do I even remember?”) but then gives up and tells the story herself: while she was walking home after dance rehearsal, some stranger grabbed her hand (while trying to pickpocket the guy next to her). When he started running away, Rhododendron chased him down (they argue about whether Verrix was crying or not) and shot his cape into the ground.

Rhododendron: “I didn’t confront him the crowd, psh. I waited until he was cornered and alone.” 

Verrix: “Like an animal.” 

Rhododendron: “Yeah! Like an animal! (…) I have a perfect memory, I can recount any tale.” 

Verrix: “I bet you do that on your hands too.” 

Rhododendron: “ANYWAYS, he can’t pull the arrow out because he’s weak as hell, so I felt bad and tried to help him pull the arrow out of the ground.”

Verrix: “No you didn’t. You were laughing.” 

Rhododendron: “I was laughing a little bit. So eventually I felt bad and sat down and helped him pull the arrow out of the ground, but he tried to run, so I shot him for real this time. (At Jun and Verrix’s scandalized looks) In the leg!”

While Verrix recovered from the arrow wound (and ran away, with Rhododendron saving his life) he lived with Rhododendron for a few months. Before she can fully catch Verrix up on the situation at hand, Rhododendron hears voices from a nearby grove of trees. She makes Verrix and Jun wait while she investigates the source of the noises, finding that there are a few bandits arguing about what to do with a captive aasimar that they have tied to a tree. Among the bandits is a fire genasi (Umbra, c’mon) that seems to be the leader of the group. Rhododendron tries to cut the aasimar free of the ropes, but ends up loudly scratching the bark and alerting the bandits to her presence.

Umbra: “Who are you?” 

Rhododendron: “Uh, Romeo.” 

Umbra: “What are you doing here?” 

Rhododendron: “It’s, uh, hard-eth not to.” 

Umbra: “Right, well, I’m going to kill you now. Nothing personal.”

Rhododendron: “It seemeth personal!”

When they hear the bandits go quiet, Verrix and Jun realize that Rhododendron might be in trouble. They head over to where the bandits are to help her.

Verrix: “I don’t think her plan worked.” 

Jun: “She had a plan?” 

Verrix: “Good point.”

As Rhododendron shoots Umbra, it seems like they instantly heal the wound, yanking the arrow out without flinching. During the fight Umbra singles out Rhododendron and hits her using their own blood, causing her to go into a blood rage. Rhododendron is fully taken into her Romeo schtick in her frenzy, tearing at the bandits with her swords. One of the dwarven bandits (rolling a poorly timed critical miss) accidentally kills himself with his own war hammer. Umbra sends out a blast of necrotic energy with a scream that hits everyone on the battlefield, blood flying out from them and blinding Rhododendron and Jun. Right after Rhododendron sustains heavy damage from another one of the bandits, the other aasimar wakes up, punching one of the dwarven bandits straight in the face. 

Umbra causes Verrix to go into the blood rage. Meanwhile, Rhododendron’s blood rage ends, giving her a point of exhaustion. The strange aasimar heals Rhododendron a little, asking if she’s okay. Verrix manages to work through his blood rage to finish off most of the bandits. The other aasimar, while Rhododendron and Jun are still blinded, unfurls a pair of skeletal wings, Frightening the remaining bandits. Rhododendron finally manages to wipe the blood out of her eyes in time to see a tree that Jun accidentally set on fire, a stranger with creepy wings, and Verrix practically frothing at the mouth with bloodlust. 

The party manages to finish off the last of the bandits and realizes that the fire genasi disappeared sometime in the middle of the fight. (Rhododendron is at two hp, they short rest.) The strange aasimar keeps his distance from the group, eyeing the ashen remains of the majority of the bandit group. Verrix and Rhododendron have both taken one point of exhaustion. 

Rhododendron: “Hey! New guy! Why’d you get tied to a tree?” 

Inigo: “Uh, someone knocked me out.” 

Rhododendron: “What did you do? Very few people get knocked out without deserving it.”

Rhododendron properly introduces the group to the other aasimar, and asks if he knows any angels - he says he wishes he didn’t. He then dances around answering any questions that Rhododendron asks other than providing his name. After finding out he doesn’t have any memories - and after Inigo inadvertently name-drops ‘Umbra’ (followed by a lot of “um, bruh” jokes) - the party convinces Inigo to come with them, with Rhododendron telling him that she knows him (and that she’s his mentor). Rhododendron recruits Inigo to go join their party, keeping the details of her goals in the mountains vague.

While continuing their trek towards Dynafell, Verrix tells Rhododendron that it’s a little hard being on the run since he “can’t run very fast”, to which Rhododendron casts Longstrider on him. When Verrix starts walking too far ahead of the group, Rhododendron warns her that Umbra is probably still running around somewhere nearby. As they get closer to Dynafell, Rhododendron fills Verrix in on the reason she cannot go back into the city. Donny pops out of the grass, threatening Verrix with her great sword before realizing that he’s with Rhododendron. She reveals that she got Raz to come along with her, and that angels also appeared in Dynafell to offer a huge reward for killing any aasimar in the area. 

Rhododendron: “Huh, weird. Anyways, I don’t know any aasimar.”

Rhododendron persuades Donny to stop harassing the rest of the party after she finds out that 1) two of them are aasimar and 2) Rhododendron was in a fight where she was pretty badly hurt. Donny is still disappointed by the additions to the party (and that Jun is still there). Donny is convinced that Inigo is lying to the group about not having any memories.

Rhododendron: “Do you see that big bump on the back of his head??”

Donny: “I can make it bigger.”

After realizing that Inigo and Verrix aren’t safe anywhere nearby, the group decides to head towards the closest other city: Tszar, a coastal city a few days away. Along the way, people in the small farming villages they pass through also mention the appearance of the angels and their enormous bounty. Verrix disguises himself, Rhododendron helps Inigo put a disguise on to avoid suspicion as they move through these villages and telling the rest of the group to ‘lie low’. 

Rhododendron (in a bad fake accent): “Ah, Donyah, silly girl.” 

Donny: “My name is Donny! DONNY! Did you forget already?” 

Verrix: “It’s okay, it took her two weeks to stop calling me Ferret.”

As they pass through a few more villages, Rhododendron realizes that it might not be safe anywhere for the aasimar she’s with, further confirmed after Jun falls asleep and says that the angels are looking for two aasimar. He also mentions that their best chance of avoiding one of the aasimar getting killed is to pass back through the Snaketail Crevice. 

Donny: “It seems like you’re doing this to avoid addressing the personal problems in your life. That’s why you’re fixating on helping strangers and killing dragons.” 

Rhododendron: “……I’m not killing any dragons.”

After Donny continues to annoy Rhododendron and make vague threats at the rest of the party, Jun casts Silence on her, happening to trap Raz in the sphere of magic as well. (Rhododendron, to Verrix: “Is this what love is?”) The party heads back towards the crevice in relatively more peace, but Rhododendron and Donny get trapped by a bush that they have a lot of difficult setting on fire - and Raz refuses to help with. Rhododendron manages to cut herself free (Jun slows her fall with Featherfall) while Donny takes a little while longer to wrestle out of the bush’s vines (Jun just watches her fall, Inigo reluctantly catches her). The party eventually manages to defeat the bush after sustaining a surprising amount of damage.  The party decides to trek a little further before taking a long rest, getting rid of Verrix and Rhododendron’s exhaustion.

The next morning, Donny scavenges a few birds from the nearby trees for ‘breakfast’, throwing one at Verrix when Rhododendron tells her to share. Verrix takes a bite out of the raw bird, (rolling a nat20 CON check) and keeps eating it to the collective horror of the party minus Donny, who offers him another bloody bird.  As they pass through more villages on their way back to the Crevice, Rhododendron and Jun notice that the people are still frenzied in their search for the aasimar, with Jun pointing out that it’s an unnatural frenzy, similar to the blood rage Umbra had inflicted on the party the day before - and that, if allowed to continue, people might die from the unnatural frenzy. Jun wonders if the angels are trying to kill all aasimar rather than anyone in specific. Verrix tries to get answers from the voice in his head but there is no response; Rhododendron asks Inigo if he’s heard any voices in his head since waking up, but he denies hearing anything. Rhododendron offers everyone in the party (except Verrix and Inigo) an out from the party if they want it, but no one takes her up on the offer. Donny wonders if killing the person/entities responsible for cursing people with their blood-frenzy will end the spell, but Jun says it isn’t guaranteed. Rhododendron decides to split the party up to search for answers, or a cure. 

Rhododendron: “Me, Inigo, and Verrix are gonna go - well, no. We all have the intelligence of a paper bag.” 

Verrix: “Has that stopped us before?” 

Rhododendron, Jun, and Inigo: “Yes.”

Verrix, Raz, and Donny are one group; Rhododendron, Jun, and Inigo are the other - Donny is horribly jealous. Before the groups split up, Jun Sees that the cause of the aasimar hunt is personal, but can’t identify the individual behind it. The groups enter the canyon, the first group taking the top level while the other one walking along the bottom path - Rhododendron, Inigo, and Jun can hear everything that the group above them says. Donny (unsurprisingly) makes a lot of noise in the canyon, causing a bright streak of radiant light to come down from the sky and hit her. An angel much like the one from earlier lands in front of Donny, engaging the party in combat. Rhododendron, hearing the angel land and threaten half of her party, climbs up to a higher level to join the fight (still below Verrix, Raz, and Donny), while Jun is tasked with babysitting Inigo on the lower level and keeping him out of the fight (although he still throws a few Firebolts up at the angels). After a few rounds of combat where the party (minus Verrix) has trouble hitting the angel, the party manages to finish it off, with Donny beheading the angel. The angel’s body turns into dust as Verrix pushes it off of a ledge, with Verrix remembering just enough about celestials to know that ‘real’ angel’s bodies don’t turn into dust when they die. 

Rhododendron: “Hey, do tieflings have wings?” 

Jun: “Some. Not me, I don’t even have a tail, ha.” 

Rhododendron: “I’m…sorry?” 

Jun: “Don’t be. It’s a personal choice.”

As the group travels further into the canyon, Jun and Rhododendron try to speculate about the angels’ purpose and what the cure might be, while Donny grills Verrix about Rhododendron - mistaking his responses to mean that they were involved while he was living with her.

Verrix: “So how do you and Rhododendron know each other?” 

Donny: “Oh, we’re like BFFS, and someday - RAZ, COVER YOUR EARS! - we’re gonna *vulgar hand gestures*” 

Verrix: “Uh, you guys are gonna walk a dog?” Donny, winking: “Yeah, we’re gonna walk a dog.”

Rhododendron yells up at Donny that she can hear everything she’s saying, and that she still won’t forgive Donny if she hurts Jun (or Verrix). Inigo starts to regain a little bit of his memory, and Jun offers to charm him into forgetting again ‘in case he turns on them’. The ground starts rumbling further down the canyon, and a giant crack appears in the canyon floor as a giant purple-centipede-thing crawls out of the hole. Donny falls from the overhead bridge she’s on all the way to the canyon floor, taking a large amount (27 points) of bludgeoning damage. During the fight the monster casts an illusory meadow over the battlefield, making it difficult for the party to tell the different height levels in the canyon and where the giant hole in the ground is. Rhododendron, Verrix, and Donny manage to land solid hits on the creature; Jun freezes a part of the battlefield, outlining part of the terrain through the illusion. During the fight the creature spits out what looks like another of the green angels at the party. 

When Inigo engages the angel in combat they get annoyed, calling him by his name to the surprise of Inigo and Rhododendron. They try to interrogate the strange angel, who says that she was ‘looking for her son’ and confirms that it is Inigo, who looks completely baffled. She also says that she’s going to kill him. After some more hesitation, Inigo finally starts to attack the angel.

Rhododendron: “Why are you attacking him?! He’s never done anything to you!” 

Angel: “He’s done plenty. Don’t get involved in this, he’s my responsibility.”

Donny gets swallowed by the worm during the fight. Rhododendron is horrified, but keeps fighting the angel; Verrix gets close to finishing off the monster. Inigo is distracted from the fight, clutching his head as a few memories start to fall back into place, his mother still trying to kill him.

Angel: “Listen, you were a mistake. I’m just trying to fix that. You’re not mad, are you?” 

Rhododendron: “YES, YES YOU ARE.” 

Inigo: “I…I…? OF COURSE I’M FUCKING MAD.”

Inigo rages (finally becoming competent in combat like he was meant to), although he’s still having trouble with his returning memories. Donny manages to get spit out of the worm, only for it to swallow Jun soon after. Inigo’s rage ends, and he sits out the rest of the battle, too confused and exhausted to continue fighting. As the creature’s health gets whittled down by Verrix and Donny, it spits up Jun - straight into Raz, damaging them both. Donny takes Jun’s dagger and uses it to finish the worm off, partially (and sloppily) decapitating it. Rhododendron finishes the angel off, shooting an arrow straight through her mouth and dissolving her in a shower of gold. Donny cuts off quite a few of the worm’s legs to keep as trophies, while Jun confirms that the worm and its illusions were the cause of the widespread frenzy due to it having swallowed an angel. Donny tries to eat one of the legs and pukes blood. 

Inigo: “We don’t know each other, do we?”

Rhododendron: “Does it matter that we don’t know each other?”

Inigo: “Ugh….”

Donny tries to shove legs into other people’s bags, and the party heads back to the trading post. They’re relieved to find that the people at the outpost aren’t in a frenzied rage anymore, with most people assuming that the aasimar that the angels were after is dead. When they return to the tavern, Donny tries to barter some of her worm legs for food/drink, nearly getting kicked out of the place in the process. 

Rhododendron: “So…dragon tomorrow?” 

Everyone: *groans* 

Donny: I wanna nap! I wish I knew what sleep was!”

Donny (followed after a little while by Raz) ditches the table the party gets to sit at the bar and continue to try to barter off her worm legs, while Jun and Inigo fall asleep at the table. Rhododendron asks Verrix if he wants to stick with her and the rest of the party for the foreseeable future, to which he responds that he ‘might as well’. Verrix hears the chime of bells and laughter in the back of his mind. Rhododendron rents two rooms for the party to rest in, then looks over her strange group of acquaintances + Verrix and sneaks out of the tavern, overwhelmed. Verrix catches her leaving but doesn’t say anything. After a few minutes spent brooding and staring at the mountain range, Rhododendron drags Verrix outside to talk. During the talk Rhododendron does that YA-novel/anime protagonist thing where she convinces herself that she’s responsible for bringing danger into the lives of the people around her, much to Verrix’s concern.

Rhododendron: “Are you sure you want to do this? You almost died today.”

Verrix: “You could die so many ways at this point.” 

Rhododendron: “Exactly, you almost died today. Like a lot. And you could be safer if you were not chasing dragons.” 

Verrix: “So could you, but is that gonna stop you?” 

Rhododendron: ”You were never really involved in this until I dragged you into it…” 

Verrix: “Wouldn’t be the first time.” 

Rhododendron: “Hey! Technically, you dragged me into the other stuff. The stuff with your -” 

Verrix: “Shut up!” 

Rhododendron: “You tried to rob me!”

Verrix: “Nuh-uh, the guy next to you. Your hand was in the way, flailing all over the place.”

Rhododendron asks Verrix if he wants to go with her, without the rest of the party, into the mountains to find the dragon. She also asks Verrix to tell Donny and Jun not to go after her if he stays. Verrix repeatedly tries to convince Rhododendron to stay with the group, to little success, even though Rhododendron admits that she would miss him, Donny, and Jun.

Rhododendron: “Jun is…weirdly feels like my other half, I guess? That’s way more romantic that I meant to put it. He gets what I’m saying even if I don’t make any sense. And Donny...”

Donny, Raz, and Jun are playing cards when Rhododendron heads back inside, Inigo still fake-sleeping at the table. Rhododendron kisses Donny on the cheek before she goes to bed.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 224: More Like Slidin’ Go Fuck Yourself

Previously on BnHA: We caught up back to real time and learned that the Shigaraki Squad has been battling Gigantomachia basically nonstop for the past month and a half. Tomura in particular has barely eaten or slept (the others at least got breaks), yet is in an oddly good mood despite having not made much progress. Anyway, Twice got a phone call from Giran’s number, except that it turned out not to be Giran, because we of course know that the Quirk Liberation Army has captured him. Guess what else they’ve done! If you guessed “tortured him for a week and severed five of his fingers and placed them in symbolic locations to send a message to the League,” you guessed right and that’s pretty fucked up that you actually guessed that! So anyway, DetCEO, who apparently goes by “Re-Destro”, bragged to Tomura about how they have 116,516 “liberation warriors” spread throughout the country and have been preparing for this moment for generations. They want to tear down the world and rebuild it as a place where everyone can freely use their quirks. Almost doesn’t sound too bad, until you remember the whole “kidnap, torture, and dismember” thing (and the fact that Re-Destro killed poor Mickey Mouse just a handful of chapters ago). Also they knew Tomura’s exact location somehow, and Re-Destro threatened to sic all of the top heroes on them if they don’t cooperate. He told Tomura to meet them at Deika City in Aichi Prefecture so they can have an epic battle.

Today on BnHA: Re-Destro invites the Shigaraki Squad to a big ol’ murderfest free for all in Aichi prefecture. The squad takes a few minutes to debate the merits of accepting this invitation, with the most pressing arguments in favor being “they kidnapped and tortured our bro Giran” and “they know our location and will sic all of the top heroes on us if we don’t”, while the biggest argument against is the whole “it’s obviously a trap” thing. Ujiko, who’s listening in on the whole thing, warns that he won’t be able to lend them any High Ends for the time being. But Tomura doesn’t seem too concerned, and asks Ujiko to warp them over. His plan is to have Gigantomachia follow them and fuck up the Meta Liberation Army’s day, thus killing two birds with one stone for him. So they head to Deika City, picking up Dabi on the way, and are greeted by none other than fucking Slidin’ Go, who’s apparently evil. Huh. He leads them through the city, which seems mostly abandoned. “Seems” being the operative word, as it turns out the city is occupied by Liberation army cronies, who proceed to greet Tomura and the gang with some friendly violence. Tomura and co. respond in kind, and the focus shifts to Toga, who’s facing off with Kizuki from the Army who has All Might’s eyes and Katsuki’s quirk (a winning combo if I do say so myself). Anyway so now they’re gonna fight.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my mostly-unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’m caught up with the manga now at chapter 226, so any ETAs will reflect that.)

so apparently Re-Destro told Tomura to be at the location within the hour, because Horikoshi has apparently learned his lesson about long, drawn-out arcs. thank you god, thank you jesus

apparently they know the League can warp, so they won’t accept any excuses for them taking their sweet time

and this is super creepy tbh

satellites. why didn’t you think of that, Tomura? here you guys are relying on secret traitors for your intel instead like amateurs

but seriously, it’s so creepy to have people with this capability and have them be the bad guys. imagine what kind of dystopian shit they’d get up to if they actually won?? it wouldn’t be pretty, I can tell you that much

obviously go meet up with them and kick their asses. or, even better, take the gorilla with you

oh my god Twice I love you so much though

Twice you are the Kirishima of villains. Tomura! listen to him! you can be villains who both win and rescue!!

oh my god Toga

TOGA I BELIEVED IN YOU WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS

Twice is passionately saying that if there’s even the slightest chance he’s still alive, they have to go

now Compress is chiming in and pointing out that charging in with no plan is a very bad idea and that Twice always gets “attached” too easily. omg. stfu Compress. so sorry for actually giving a shit, dude

so what does Tomura have to say about all this? villain he may be, but his origin story involves being “rescued” by AFO after being seemingly abandoned by everyone else (or so he believes anyway). are you going to just leave Giran to a fate like that? and then there’s the matter of that satellite tracking you too

oh shit

wow what a fucked up move dude. but effective though

ooh now he’s getting in touch with Ujiko and asking if he was listening in

Ujiko is all “you kids are always on your fancy little ‘radios’“ lol what. Ujiko it’s 2214, cell phones have been around for 250 years. get with the fucking times dude

meanwhile poor Twice is clutching his head and moaning that he’s splitting apart, but only Toga seems to care. ;_; ahh Twice

Compress is getting all hopeful and thinking that they can use the High Ends to battle the Liberation Army

but Ujiko is all “sorry but no”

please stop calling them children you fucking creep omg. do you not even care

so Hijack Noumu’s name was “Hood”, huh? farewell, High Puns Noumu. it’s been fun times but I was seriously running out of things that start with “high”, so I’m gonna latch on to this Hood thing if you don’t mind lol

well we all know AFO being gone is more of a temporary inconvenience (:

lastly, it’s very curious how he says “difficult” as opposed to impossible. please give us the deets of how Noumus are made already Horikoshi. I know I’m gonna regret being so curious but I want to know all the same. open that big ol’ Pandora’s box

Compress is all “well fuck”, but Tomura says that wasn’t his plan anyway. oh?

I bet you he wants to use the recording of AFO’s voice to get Giganto under control

ahhh, yeah, it’s looking that way my dudes

oh my god you guys

fuck me. but just. it’s the first time I’ve ever been struck by a resemblance between the two of them, is all. something about the confidence in his smile. for once he’s not unhinged; he’s perfectly in control of himself and he is a man with a plan, and just. damn. boy you look like your grandma and I’m feeling those Shimura feels though

anyway, so it’s interesting that he’s also getting Dabi to meet up with them. meaning his plan is (for the moment, at least) beyond my comprehension, because I certainly can’t figure out wth he’s thinking right now

and now Spinner’s all “we’re seriously rushing straight in?!” and pointing out that they have no idea what they’re getting into and they’re going up against an army that’s supposedly 110,000 strong

ah, okay, maybe I did figure out his plan after all

okay but then why do you need Dabi

now Ujiko is yelling in his ear “BUT WHAT WILL YOU DO IF IT WAS ALL A BLUFF?!”

and Tomura is all “well then Giganto will fucking die, s’no skin off my back”

Spinner keeps expressing doubts and it’s really starting to look like he may actually switch sides you guys

Tomura is all “don’t make me say it again”

oh good he is fixing Twice up now

... [headpats]

oh Tomura

the good folks of Deika City might want to think about getting the fuck out of Dodge you guys

(ETA: they are all bad folks. you fuckers have only yourselves to blame. have fun being dusted, roasted, compressed, and floated twice over. and Goron pounded. and whatever Spinner fucking does. is it really just the samurai sword. whatever.)

oh look Dabi did join them after all

you guys seeing them act like heroes is so fucking weird though. I know they’re our protags for this arc but still. weird

why did you agree to come?? because you love them you jerk. and you owe Giran as much as anyone

petition to rename this the Villain Feels arc you guys

oh shit

good instincts you guys! good eye, Toga!

OH MY FUCKING --

MOTHERFUCKER!?!?!

so there really was a reason chapter 219 was named after this guy, huh?? he had such a minor role but Horikoshi wanted to make sure we didn’t just immediately forget about him! holy shit. motherfucker did you even return all of those wallets??

holy shitballs this frictionless fuck hugged Katsuki and Shouto and no one suspected a damn thing

AND!!!

as we know, Katsuki was right to call attention to this. but now we know Slidin’ was being intentionally dismissive of the villain’s tech in order to hide Detnerat’s involvement! son of a bitch. that might even have been why he was there in the first place

look at this piece of shit

fuck this guy so hard

oh my fuck

petition to rename this arc the Villain Feels/Stephen King Novel arc

holy shit

well at least we know they’re all expendable. that’s good, considering the League isn’t likely to go out of their way to keep any innocent passerby from dying horribly. run that mission statement by me again one more time, Tomura? “destroy everything?” yeah that’s what I thought you said, thanks

wow and the big bads are here too already!!

if the one on the left (Kizuki, just went back and checked) fights anyone other than Toga I’m gonna lowkey be rooting for her ngl

YOOOO

WHERE DID ALL THESE PEOPLE COME FROM ALL OF A SUDDEN AND HOW QUICKLY WILL DABI BURN THEM ALL TO DEATH, DO YOU THINK

like, okay, so you wanna come at us like that then?? fun! fucking bring it!

holy shit this guy is a politician??

is that what he means by “party”? damn these guys are in the fucking government and everything

government, big business, satellites... look, no pressure here Tomura, but if you don’t win, I’m starting to think we are seriously screwed

anyway so Twice is all “who cares about these guys, where’s Giran?” and I have to admire his focus in the face of... all this

Hanabata is gesturing to the observation tower in the distance and says Giran is “waiting” over there with Re-Destro

and Twice is all outraged because they said they’d return Giran to them when they got there. “you filthy liar.” wow imagine that. bad guys lying about shit

someone or other appears to be watching everything from the nearby security cameras. probably RD. motherfucker

now these two guys are introducing themselves to Tomura because I guess they’d like to be disintegrated today

nice knowing you guys. but not really

hahahahahhaaa

I know it’s fucked up, but they had it coming, and that was some of the stupidest shit anyone in this manga has pulled in a hot minute though

um

hard not to see an explosion and immediately think of my boy Kacchan! but obviously he’s not there, so what gives??

oh shit

sladkfjalskdfowiehfoksSDLFKJSLDGKHL

okay. okay hold up. gather my thoughts. can’t just keysmash, gotta get my brain back into working order here...!

motherfucker how did I know the girl was gonna fight the other girl. well whatever

THIS BITCH HAS KATSUKI’S QUIRK BUT FROM LONG-DISTANCE?! LIKE PYROKINESIS BUT WITH EXPLOSIONS?! WHAT DO YOU CALL THIS, COMBUSTIKINESIS?? ALSO I KNEW I WAS RIGHT TO LOVE HER FROM THE OUTSET OMG

and on top of that, that gesture with her fingers is giving me strong flashbacks to [S] Cascade from Homestuck

TOGA FAKED HER OWN DEATH TELL ME MORE!?!?

ARE WE GOING TO GET SOME MOTHERFUCKING TOGA FLASHBACKS YOU GUYS I CAN’T. I KNOW I’VE SAID IN THE PAST THAT I DON’T CARE AND WOULDN’T MIND IF SHE JUST STAYS CRAZY WITH NO EXPLANATION BUT THIS IS ALSO GOOD YOU GUYS. I CAN’T LIE, I’M SO FUCKING HYPED RIGHT NOW??

TOGA YOU HAD BETTER FIT THAT FLASHBACK INTO A SINGLE CHAPTER THOUGH BECAUSE THE GOLDEN WEEK BREAK IS ALMOST HERE AND I S2G HORIKOSHI IF YOU PULL ANY BULLSHIT AND LEAVE ME HANGING FOR TWO WHOLE FUCKING WEEKS, I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN MOTHERFUCKER

(ETA: THIS BITCH DOESN’T EVER LISTEN TO ME AND MY EMPTY THREATS. GODDAMMIT.)

oh my god. hype for days. you guys. this is amazing

[hufflepuff-ravenclaw-reviews]

Proven Innocent Season 1 Episode 3

The episode starts off a little different than the previous two. Madeline musing about how, as soon as she was under the microscope for Rosemary's murder, she stopped being Madeline Scott, and started being defined by things that the public wanted to see in her. A bad party girl who'd murdered her friend.

Easy is in church, talking with the pastor after the service. The pastor asks to speak with him in private, and introduces him to a woman. The woman has a nephew who's been in prison, and she's convinced that her nephew couldn't have killed the man. However, there's one small problem: her nephew confessed to the murder.

Madeline and Easy talk to the guy in jail, who says that his friend, nicknamed Rabbit, gave him the murder weapon, and he gave it to the police with the explanation that his friend gave it to him. Which... not exactly a confession, by any means.

Later, the team looks at the court records. The trial only lasted for one day, but the jury took four days to reach a verdict. Violet agrees to go on a date with the creepy guy who's in charge of that at the court house... he's creepy because he owns like 40 birds. (Which is 39 too many IMHO.)

They're able to track down the jury hold out. She says that she liked the kid, because he seemed sweet and also young. (He was 14 at the time, but tried as an adult because he “looked” like an adult.) However, a guard kept bringing in the paper, and her opinion was swayed on the matter when she read an article about the victim in the case. The judge decides that this is grounds for a mistrial.

Later, Violet and Madeline talk about the weird bird guy in Madeline's...??? Does she live in an apartment? Is she living with her parents? Is she rooming in the office building? I'm confused. But anyway, they're in Madeline's space. Violet looks over to Madeline's wall of Rosemary's murder, and mentions about “question mark guy”. Madeline explains that Rosemary was upset because she'd dated this guy named “Joe” who had apparently stalked her, and it was scary. However, Madeline could never find any information on this guy. Violet says that she'll do some digging of her own into the issue.

Meanwhile, Easy finds a fake ID for his son, and confronts him about it. He grounds him, but also has to remind him “being grounded also means no video games”.

Next, they try to break the detective who'd forced the confession. When they get to the courthouse, it's to find Bellows is suddenly on the cage. Ugh. Get the fuck out of here. The detective seems to think that there's no way that anybody would ever confess for a crime if they didn't actually commit it. However, most confessions are followed up by recording it or having a written counterpart. You know, to go back and look over later. And our client's video confession? Conveniently corrupt. Uh-huh.

Madeline goes on another date with the reporter guy, this time, to a jazz club. They talk briefly about her work, and then they dance. They go onto the dance floor, where they kiss, despite how uncomfortable that Madeline is getting close to anybody.

Later, the reporter talks to his boss about Madeline. He's not actually interested in being with Madeline, but rather, with the promise of getting literally any job he wants if he can get some kind of confession about what happened with Rosemary from Madeline. What a piece of shit!

Sometime the next day, Madeline publicly endorses the candidate running opposite Bellows. Which... this isn't surprising at all. Especially because Madeline seems to be dragged into the middle of a campaign that she's not even running for.

Bellows watches this with the lady that Madeline did an interview with in the last episode. She says that she's not just going to bring Madeline up in Bellows' interview. However, he says that he's going to bring Madeline up by bringing Rosemary's parents into the mix.

This leads to him talking to her parents. Her father is angry about the entire thing, and storms from the room. However, the mother says that they've been divorced for some time now, and she's willing to hear Bellows out.

Meanwhile with Levi... he appears in court, and Madeline wants to accept the plea deal. However, the other lawyer says that the offer is off the table, because the Husbands are now stating that Levi attacked THEM with a baseball bat, even though Mr. Husband was the one who attacked Levi (and then Levi punched him in the face).

Our client du jour was harassed in jail, and all of his drawings ripped down. The officers kept shoving him violently up against the wall.

This leads to the drawings being used as “evidence” against him in court later. The prison “psychiatrist” suggests that it shows the guy's way of coping with guilt. However, Madeline quickly squashes this “evidence” because the client depicted himself as having wings and his weapon was a giant afro pick. Clearly not ground in reality.

Meanwhile, Bodie manages to track down somebody who might be Rabbit. (He's been searching this entire time without luck.) The guy runs off as soon as he opens the door, and Bodie gives chase. However, the guy isn't Rabbit, but Rabbit's brother. Rabbit died a few years ago.

Bodie then asks a female detective for help in getting the guy's files, in exchange for dinner and foreplay that involves handcuffs.

But with this information, they're able to see that the Rabbit kid had an extensive police record. And not only that, but on an arrest before their client was arrested, it had been done by the same detective who'd forced the confession from the client. The detective has no answers for any of this, especially because literally everything in HIS report is right there, including the fact that the kid went by “Rabbit”. He knew exactly who Rabbit was the entire time; the detective is just shitty and probably viewed one black boy the same as the next. Let's not pretend like the race card didn't come into play here. Ugh.

Violet follows up with one last piece of evidence that would prove the client's innocence. The day of the murder, the kid had his picture taken with a comic book artist at a local comic book store; Violet recognized it as soon as she saw the picture. She talks to the store owner, who later testifies about having seen the kid in his shop. However, there were a lot of other people there for the comic book signing/meet and greet, so there's no way that the owner could be 100% sure that the kid didn't just slip away to murder the guy anyway.

After the session of trial is over for the day, the aunt approaches Easy and asks why her nephew hasn't been on the stand. This leads to getting into a fight with Madeline over the entire thing.

He goes to see a shrink about everything that's been going on. She points out that he clearly sees parallels between the client and his son, because his son is fourteen right now.

He goes back to the office, where he apologizes to Madeline over what happened, and explains about his son. She says that her own lawyer refused to put her on the stand, and clearly never once believed a thing she had to say.

They go to talk to the client in prison, and ask him if he'll testify on his own behalf. He gives them a drawing of Easy and Madeline as superheros and OMG, I'm crying. He agrees.

On the stand, it's re-established that he was fourteen years old when this happened. They go on to say that the police questioned him for around twenty hours. The aunt wasn't there because 1) working 3 jobs and 2) she never knew that her nephew was a suspect until it was too late. There was never any lawyer. The police kept telling him over and over that he could just go home if he told them what they wanted to hear. The poor kid just wanted to go home. He gave them the gun, which he thought that they wanted.

After, Madeline insists that Easy needs to make the closing statements. He's uncertain about this, though. He goes home, and is sitting at the kitchen table with his son while his son works on his homework and Easy works on the closing statement. He then tells his son that he loves him, and then watches as his son gets ice cream.

Easy's closing statements echoes the feelings that he's experienced with his son this episode. He begs the jury to consider a fourteen year old, scared out of his mind, wanting to go home, who is just horrified of what's happening.

Bellows' closing statement kind of... just contradicts the evidence about the detective claiming not to know who Rabbit was, and begging the jury to consider the victim. Which... this isn't even about that anymore, I feel.

The jury comes back with a not guilty verdict, and the judge frees the client.

Madeline later goes home, to find that Levi got in with a spare key their mom gave them. He's upset and angry about Madeline's wall of Rosemary's death, but she confronts him about having apparently stalked Rosemary. (Violet had found Levi's name on some flight data from when Rosemary said that she was stalked.) They argue about this, and Levi storms out. Madeline clearly loves her brother, but it's obvious that her trust in him has been shattered.

[adhdusagi]

Princess Tutu episodes 14-end

I watched the entire second half of the series in one day because I make good life choices

Previously on Princess Tutu Watch:

Okay I can get back to Tokyo Mew Mew now

+++++++++++++++++++

It was a lie, I could NOT

EPISODE, UH, FUCK……… 14! - The Raven

asdklsdhflhdl (google docs stop capitalizing my keysmashes) they’re bringing back “once upon a time there was a man who died”!!!!!! Honestly that might be one of my favorite lines in this whole show

Gotta love the sarcasm in “and they lived happily ever after”

The theme song…… it’s so good

Oh nooooooooooooooo

This scene is literally just the “I’ve got a headache that comes and goes” meme

Fakir you complete dork. You’re all dorks

“Princess Tutu and a crocodile are totally different” you tell ‘im, Mytho

Duck speaks so much more regularly than the other main characters? I mean, there’s Fakir over there like “Shall we go?” and Duck saying things like “I’m gonna be late!” and using “like” and “stuff”... I mean, I know this is the dub, but

Duck why are you using Fakir’s dumb excuses omg

Lilie is just the personification of my negative thoughts

BUT WHAT DID MYTHO TELL FAKIR

Awwwwwwww Duck, no

They’re in a terrifying Raven Dimension with like, ominous music and people wailing in the background and meanwhile Kraehe and the Raven are just having like, a normal conversation

Also, are the white feathers supposed to be like, what’s trapping the Raven there?

Duck please

Wait, Princess Tutu transformed on her own!

Episode 15 - Coppelia

Also, watching Fakir try and fail to stop Mytho from jumping out the window is Pain

Lilie you are a Strange Child

STEALTH DUCK RETURNS!

Oh no?? Fakir doesn’t want to get Mytho in trouble???

alsdfksfh the entire student population is Here For The Drama

Duck don’t yell in the library

Fakir just doesn’t make good decisions

Oooh that doesn’t look good

Sad Kraehe Theme Alert

You “just happened” to do a lot of things, Lilie

Omg Lilie “Want to just happen to go see?”

Rue just shows up to trash talk Fakir for a minute and then leaves

I say as if I’m not in So Much Pain

Yeah! Every single time Princess Tutu transformed in the first season, it was because Drosselmeyer said something, but now she’s transforming on her own!

Oh no Mytho

Also I like how Tutu doesn’t just flat-out say “you don’t actually love him” and instead is just like “how about you try doing things you enjoy with the guy you like instead of giving him Your Actual Heart”

Episode 16 - The Maiden’s Prayer

Wait is Angry Narrator back or did the other narrator just regain the heart shard of Withering Scorn?

Lilie isn’t even interested in the love triangle, she just wants Duck and Pike to fight

Is that Goatette

“So pretty…. What? Oh yeah I meant the flowers of course haha” Duck

Such a serious child

“Love only me, hate everyone else”/“The prince who loves me and me alone”

This child is amazing

It was such a good decision to give Fakir a little sister. A good decision for everyone involved

aslfsdjhklgdlghdjghfdklkdkalh Kraehe told him that Duck would suffer if she knew what was happening with Mytho so Fakir isn’t going to tell herrrrrrrrrr Fakir please don’t internalize that!! You are breaking my heart sir

Oh my god it wasn’t Goatette it was the sloth

*The Can Can plays loudly over a sloth just kinda hangin out*

Episode 17 - Crime and Punishment

This may or may not have been the last episode I watched the first time I watched this show?

“Eyes of truth” huh?

This dumbass child

Femio, from the other side of the school grounds: “DID SOMEBODY SAY ‘PRINCE’????”

What the Fuck are you doing with your hands, kid

Why are you a cow

Honestly as over-the-top as Femio is he is also simultaneously the most realistic middle-schooler in this entire show

Oh my god he’s on probation

I’m sorry I’m just talking about Femio but he’s hilarious

Truly a Grade A Idiot

What is he even doing with his life

I’ve become Lilie

These characters have emotional crises over people saying the stupidest things and tbh I relate to that

Oh dear!

The thing is, Femio would be really annoying in real life, but in a tv show he’s just amusing

Rue’s FACE, she’s so done

I like how Duck can tell which building Rue’s in just by the amount of crows around it

Tbh all the students probably have noticed what’s going on, they just think it’s some kind of weird performance art thing. Wouldn’t be out of character for this school

Fakir and Uzura really are siblings, I love this

The best part about this episode is it’s this completely ridiculous person unintentionally getting in the middle of everybody’s emotional issues

“I feel kinda like something happened, and kinda like it didn’t” Duck you are absolutely correct

And of course the Aquarium is good once again

Episode 18 - The Wandering Knight

Incidentally, how old are these kiddos? We know Mytho is older than Duck, so Fakir and Rue probably are too?? But like, probably only by a year? Who even knows what their actual ages are

I mean, Duck is a duck so

It’s! The trees from the opening!

I don’t know if I’ve asked this before, but why does Fakir have a horse?

Oh my god Lilie

Can everybody STOP picking on Fakir for being afraid to die? He is 14, leave him alone

Ahiru is trying so hard to be helpful, give her a chance Fakir

Once again Rue shows up to get in a burn on Fakir and then leave

I swear every time the Aquarium plays in this show

Oh noooooooo Ruuuuueeeeeeee

Literally Protect All Of These Characters

Save These Children From Their Own Emotional Issues

FAKIR PLEASE

Pride is absolutely the worst feeling Mytho could get back right now?

“There’s something sinister going on that I’m not a part of!” And that really gets to you doesn’t it Dross. I bet it’s really… grinding your gears!!!

(why do I feel so proud of insulting a fictional character)

Episode 19 - A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Wow we really are starting this one off on a sinister note (it’s Drosselmeyer’s revenge on me for that pun)

Of course he can’t tell you, he doesn’t fuckin know what’s going on

Fakir please stop basing your entire identity around being a knight

Oh no, Mytho’s regained the heart shard of Basing Your Entire Identity Around Upholding A Role

I wonder if Hermia being tall is like, a meta Shakespeare joke, cause in the play Helena’s really tall and Hermia’s really short, but in every production I’ve seen it was the other way around

Rue stop projecting your insecurities onto your boyfriend

Ohhhhhhhh dear

Finally someone tells all the crows hanging around to shut up

Oh my god she really is super tall

Or Ahiru’s just super short

I am learning so much about ballet mimes

Cool bird shadows

Whoa, different raven background. And the Raven isn’t speaking with him this time? What does it mean

On no, Tutu

Hahaha oh no

Aaahaha they’re the same

THEY EVEN DO THE SAME ARM-FLAILY THING

Episode 20 - The Forgotten Story

ALRIGHT, TIME FOR THE FAKIR’S SAD BACKSTORY EPISODE

Raetzel: *walks in*

Uzura: And where do you fit in the shipping chart, ma’am

THIS is a High Quality Directatorial Decision

Oh no Duck. oh no she’s so earnest nooooo

It is just Extremely Wrong to see Mytho dancing to something besides Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy

Mr. Cat can hear the word “wedding” from three floors up

Oh my GOD they put broken heart stickers on the window

I mean, I say they but we all know it was Lilie

Again, Duck knows exactly where shit’s going down just because that’s where all the crows are

Oh no!

Everybody needs to stop giving Fakir shit Right Now. Everybody needs to stop thinking it’s a bad thing that Fakir didn’t fucking Die, and that includes Fakir OKAY????

I’ve been thinking… Raven Mytho keeps saying things like “people only want love because they want to be loved” and I wonder… if that was sort of his experience as a prince. Or maybe I’m just getting this mixed up with Utena lol. But it does seem like a genuine issue he has as opposed to just something he says to manipulate people. Hm.

Episode 21 - The Spinners

Every time the narrator says “once upon a time there was a man who died” I Will Flip

Duck tries to lean nonchalantly against a door, it goes about how you’d expect

Duck that’s not how writing works (ughgfjdghskjkgf my pain)

AW NO

Oh no Duck is too relatable

UUAAAAAA TREE GHOST TREE GHOST

“Follow my every order and be prepared to die if you should fail” it’s almost like you WANT me to hate you. FAKIR DOESN’T NEED THIS

See Duck agrees with me

PETITION FOR PEOPLE TO LEAVE FAKIR THE FUCK ALONE THAT MEANS YOU TREE GHOST

Ohshit it’s that old guy from the bookshop???

Uzura is NOT “unrelated”, obviously she is Fakir’s baby sister

“I’m just watching again” oh no Duck

Autor what the Fresh Heck are you doing to Fakir

YOU ARE NOT FINE?????????

Honestly Fakir needs to get in touch with his emotions, not get sleep deprived and hallucinate in a field

This tree is saying things Edel said??? Was Edel made from the wood of this tree?????? Oh my god???????????

Anyway that was Intense

Listen, Raven Mytho has real issues and you can fight me on this

Ah, I see Dross is practicing the time-honored authorial tradition of “If the Story Isn’t Working, Hit It With a Wrench”

Episode 22 - Crown of Stone

But who’s going to protect Fakir huh? Answer me that, Duck

One big-ish happy familyyyyyyyyy

I needed this life advice tbh

Aaaaaah Uzura’s talking to Rue!

“Are you the Rue we’re worried about?” I love how she just included herself in that

Autor, I’m……. not sure you want the tree ghost cult to acknowledge you

Uhm, I’m pretty sure Autor doesn’t fit into the shipping chart and I think Uzura would agree with me

Ah fuck!!! Fakir turn around

Wait it’s an owl on a grandfather clock?? Is that actually a thing? These watchnotes are coming full circle

“I want people to love me, but is it okay to just be loved?” yep, the prince is having issues

Autor, I’m pretty sure Ahiru is figuring all that out right now

And like, the Book Men totally know it too, so

HOLY CRAP THIS SEQUENCE

AND THE MUSIC THE MUSIC IS PERFECT

SKLAFDJKVHFJK;JKLSdf;DSLKJFAKSDAKFJHFKLJJFGKLHGJFHSDLJ

I love this show

EPISODE 23 - Marionette

OH! OH! IT’S THE MUSIC EDEL ALWAYS PLAYED BUT SPED UP! That’s actually kinda creepy!

Anyway now I know why I’m so protective of Fakir, we’re both writers who can’t write anything

Oh noooooooooooo Rue

Oooooooooooh don’t like that

Ruuueeeeeeeeee please don’t stab your boyfriend we’ve been over this

Incidentally, hulu needs to quit it with these bogus commercial placements

Drosselmeyer: How dare you try to resolve your emotional problems!

Dross that’s called character development

Hahahaha joke’s on you Dross!

aaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I! LOVE! THEM!

No of course your heart is lovey-dovey Uzura! Your heart is the lovey-dovey-est!!!

Incidentally, Autor is That Guy who says just because you haven’t finished/published anything you’re not a Real Writer. And he is Wrong

Episode 24 - The Prince and the Raven

Okay, just from this title I know I won’t be able to handle this

THIS ISN’T EVEN THE PENULTIMATE EPISODE

YOU ARE HITTING ME WITH ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A MAN WHO DIED RIGHT OUT OF THE GATE I CANNOT BELIEVE

Okay but and then this story explains all of Raven Mytho’s emotional issues as well???

*sigh* Autor……. Fakir literally just told you his motivation is to protect people and you’re still going on about controlling the fates of all mankind… are you sure you’re not Drosselmeyer’s direct descendent?

Rue don’t go into the crow building

Honestly I’m still dying over the fact that you can tell where things are happening purely based on which building all the crows are at today

Tiny Rue is breaking my heart

UUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAA TINY RUE IS DOING BALLET

Omg Rue in the beginner’s class!

Oh noooo Uzura’s saaaaad

I KNOW I’ve heard this songgggggggg

THAT WAS A BIT OF THE FOSSILS FROM CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS???

Okayokayokay so it’s not Carnival of the Animals but DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS it’s another piece by Saint-Saens and DO YOU KNOW what that piece is called????? fuckin Danse Macabre!!!!! I am immediately filled with a sense of foreboding!!!

The music choices in this show are going to destroy me one day

HOLY CRAP????

I can’t believe so goddamn much happened in this episode???

Episode 25 - The Dying Swan

I’m not rrrrrrrrreadyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Not even the narrator’s obvious disappointment in Drosselmeyer can give me solace

Oh my god so is the Drosselmeyer we know just a character in Dead Drosselmeyer’s story?

I think it’s a testament to this story’s power that I’m having so many emotions about it even though I know what’s going to happen? Like, some stories, reading the summary is pretty much the same as hearing the story, but Princess Tutu is not one of those stories

Like I just overcame my social anxiety to ask my roommate to be quieter, that’s how good this story is

Aaaaaagh Rue’s change from saying “you love me” to saying “I love you” my HEART

Oh shoot! Mytho’s angry! I thought one of the gate heart shards might be anger

Oh my god Autor literally no one cares what TEA Drosselmeyer drank look at Fakir he’s so done

Aaaaaaaa ohno

EVISCERATE HIM FAKIR

Holyshitholyshitholyshit

Okay but see the lake is outside the city so Dross just took some random normal duck and plunked her down in his fairytale town and that’s why like, a cat teacher seems weird to her because she’s not from inside the story

OH NO THEY’RE PLAYING THE SWAN BUT THIS TIME IT’S RUE

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr fuck OFFFFFF

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh it’s the sword birds

excUSE you Dross, the knight has NOT “long been useless”

Episode 26 - Finale

I can’t believe after 9 years I’m finally going to finish watching this show

Okay it’s happening

It begins and ends with “once upon a time, there was a man who died”, the absolute most perfect first line in the history of first lines and you can fight me on this

Okay I’m already almost crying just from the theme song, like the Tchaikovsky fits perfectly into it? I’m gonna sing it

I’m just screaming???? They’re all in distress

BUT DUCK IS NOT GOING TO GIVE IN TO DISTRESS

RUE IS THE SWAN

DUCK DECIDES TO WRITE HER OWN STORY AND THE MUSIC FROM THE END OF THE THEME SONG STARTS PLAYING MY HEART

I’M ACTUALLY CRYING

IT’S ALL THE PEOPLE SHE HELPED

THEY ARE PLAYING THE THEME THAT PLAYS WHEN DUCK IS HAPPY

FUCKING -- AND YOU HIT ME WITH ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A MAN WHO DIED NOW

LOOK! LOOK THE SCENERY OUTSIDE THE TOWN FADES IN

I watched it.

[tigerlover16-uk]

Mind clarifying that last post?

(This is in regards to a short post I did earlier saying how Future Mai in DBS was treated with a lot more respect and was less objectified than Pan was in Dragon Ball GT, in case anyone’s wondering. I wasn’t able to write this response straight away).

Pan is technically the secondary protagonist of GT, considering she’s the one that gets the most screentime after Goku, continuing to have a seemingly prominent role even after Trunks had been demoted to extra. But she never actually does anything to justify it.

In an interview that was recently translated, which I’ll link below, the writers of the show admitted that the role they planned out for Pan was to be beaten up by the villains so Goku would look stronger by comparison. It shows.

In episode 5, the climax to a mini-arc starting off the first saga, Pan attempts to attack the villain of the episode… but then immediately gets trapped in some kind of forcefield or something. Admittedly Trunks also gets one-shot by the guys bodyguard before Goku fights him, but the trend continues for Pan’s future appearances. During the Machine Mutants arc it looks at one point after grieving over Giru’s apparent betrayal that Pan was going to do something to fight the villains herself… only to soon after get captured anyway, and it’s Trunks and Giru who end up saving the day.

During the Baby saga she gets beat up pretty much every time she gets into an action scene, usually by her own possessed father, and her own plans to try and save the day end up failing pitifully and she needs to be rescued by Uub or Goku at various points.

While she got to blow up a few people from the Red Ribbon Army in the Super 17 saga (Hardly an impressive feat though, considering how weak they are at this point), her only active attempt to save the day where she took Dr Gero hostage ended up being for nothing as Dr Myuu was a backstabbing coward, and then Pan was helpless against Super 17 of course.

In the Shadow Dragons saga she does beat up on Haze Shenron at first, but then gets subjected to Haze Shenron’s toxic mist that strips her and Goku of their power, making it look like she almost screwed them both over by not just finishing the otherwise joke villain off right away instead of just throwing a fit and wailing on him for the sake of it because he insulted her.

Then later in the saga she gets taken as a hostage by both Naturon and Eis Shenrons, and does pretty much nothing of value in the final battle against Omega Shenron, with it being Vegeta, who’s only actual role in GT up to this point was to get body-jacked by Baby, gets to go super Saiyan 4 to try and help out.

The only times Pan gets to be all that helpful in battle are against Lord Luud and Oceanus Shenron, and in both instances it’s alongside Goku, so she never gets a serious fight that she wins by herself (And honestly, Goku never even powers up that far against Oceanus Shenron, and both characters are borderline filler villains anyway), and they’re both followed up by really bad worfing in the episodes after, so any attempt to make Pan seem relevant or dependable rings hollow.

The only truly significant contributions Pan makes is in helping Golden Great Ape Goku get a grip on himself and thus becoming super Saiyan 4, and then helping power a weakened Goku up again with the other part-Saiyan characters while Majuub stalls Baby. That’s Pan’s moment of glory as the secondary protagonist, helping a male character gain a transformation. And don’t get me wrong I loved that scene, it’s one of the best in GT and very touching, but it’s systematic of how Pan is treated throughout the series.

Because aside from that, she isn’t treated with a ton of respect. She’s portrayed as a whiny brat who keeps trying to prove herself when people tell her to stay out of things, but she ends up often causing more trouble as a result of that and things only working out for the best purely by coincidence, like her causing the spaceship to crash land on the planet Giru was on. She frequently has to be rescued despite being overconfident in her own abilities.

Episode 15 has her run away from the group into a scorching desert planet when she finds out that Trunks and Goku are quite understandably planning to drop her off at earth and switch her out with Goten now that they know there are villains after the Dragon Balls, which nearly gets Pan killed via heat exhaustion and giant man-eating insects that Giru has to rescue her from. 

And then at the end of the episode, Trunks says he was wrong for thinking of sending her back to earth and allows her to stick around on the basis of “Hey, you found us the dragon ball and an oasis”, which Pan explicitly points out that GIRU found, she wasn’t even looking!

The episode tries to end on a note of Pan proving herself somehow and that she is dependable, when the actual content had her proving without a doubt that NO, she is NOT responsible, NOT capable of looking after herself and that Trunks was RIGHT to want to send her back to earth. It completely undermines her character arc beyond redemption, and makes Trunks and Goku look like irresponsible IDIOTS who think it’s okay to drag incompetent CHILDREN into battle, which is just full of so many unfortunate implications.

The most actual development she gets throughout the series is that she gradually becomes less bratty as time goes on, but even then none of the other problems are addressed.

In fairness, every other character in the show that isn’t Goku suffers a similar problem of not accomplishing much and getting easily beat up so Goku can do most of the fighting that matters, but it’s really noticeable with Pan in that she’s apparently meant to be of similar prominence in the cast to Gohan in Z.

Think of it, Gohan’s moment of glory in DBZ was going super Saiyan 2 and defeating Cell, and despite not being able to beat Super Buu he still gets some decent fights and good character growth in the Buu saga. And plenty of decent development throughout the show as a whole.

Or even take Vegeta in Super, where he’s the secondary protagonist of that show. Vegeta in Super got to go super Saiyan blue purely through training really hard, thus one-upping Goku who initially reached the power of the gods through a ritual. He defeated 3 people from the universe 6 team in the Champa saga and gained Hit’s respect for lasting longer against him than any other opponent he’d fought, got some decent moments towards the end of the Future Trunks saga where he briefly overpowered Goku Black, and then in the universe survival saga he got to take out half of universe 9 alongside Goku, eliminate a number of other minor opponents, before ultimately defeating Toppo, a newly-ascended GOD OF DESTRUCTION. I have my issues with how the last one was carried out, but you can’t say his contributions were minor or not impressive.

Pan doesn’t get nearly as good character development as either Gohan or Vegeta, certainly not as good as Goku, she never even goes super Saiyan, and she’s pretty much shown to be a burden outside of a few cases despite the show trying to go “Well, actually”, and her ultimate role in the grand scheme of things amounts to emotional support (Gee, a female lead who’s main role is to prop up a man. Nothing iffy about this, huh fellas?). And meanwhile, other characters like Uub and Vegeta are the ones who get to have transformations and significant fights with main villains, even if they do amount to pretty much nothing in both cases.

And beyond that, she’s weirdly sexualized at various points. Re-watching the subs for the Black Star saga, I’ve noticed an odd number of shots where the camera seems to linger on her butt momentarily, with her pants being oddly form fitting. There’s that disturbing scene later on in the saga where Pan gets outright turned into a doll, and Dolltaki starts playing with her and even tries to undress her, with Pan freaking out because he’ll “Ruin her as a wife”, and the creep even tries to kiss her when they’re trapped inside Luud. And then there’s that weird scene in the baby saga where a deer starts trying to nurse from her. And she’s NINE in this series.

Considering there was also a scene where two adult men were hitting on Bulla, I get the impression that someone on the writing staff might have been on the creepy side.

Honestly altogether, Pan’s portrayal is pretty horrible and disrespectful for a character who really deserved a lot better than what she got.

Contrast that with Future Mai, who despite being a non-powered human is surprisingly more competent and useful for how she’s written in the Future Trunks Saga of Super. While she needs saving on occasion, she pulls Trunks as well as Goku and Vegeta’s butts out of the line of fire just as often as Trunks saves her, and is proactive in trying to help take down Goku Black. 

When her attempt to snipe Black with a high-powered energy blast fails for example and Trunks shows up to fight him, she takes another shot at Black that creates an opening for Trunks to start beating up on him. She gets multiple moments where she gets to help out, and she’s also responsible for looking out for the remaining civilians of the Future timeline when Trunks isn’t around or incapacitated.

Despite being a love interest for Future Trunks, Mai is still competent and her main priorities aren’t on Trunks, their romantic chemistry is downplayed since she’s dedicated to protecting the future earth and it’s people, and she’s written as competent, brave, selfless and is treated by respect by the resistance soldiers who all seem to take orders from her.

For her role in the story, the show treats her with a good deal of dignity and she’s allowed to be proactive. She’s probably a good go-to example of how you can have a non-super powered supporting character in Dragon Ball still be useful to both the action and the overall narrative of a story. Oh, and also, she doesn’t suffer from any creepy sexualisation like Pan does!

I’m not saying the writing for Future Mai was perfect or anything, for one thing she feels more like an original character a lot of the time since they don’t really bring up her past or connection with the Pilaf Gang outside of one joke, and the romance with her and Future Trunks could have been built up a little more (Though it’s still at least a lot less squicky than the thing with present Trunks and “Kid” Mai. Ick), but she was at least treated with dignity. 

The only reason I wrote that snarky post comparing the two is because Mai shows how pathetically easy it is to write a female character respectfully, while GT Pan is like the ultimate example of how to screw things up with a female protagonist. It’s honestly some of the worst character writing I’ve seen in this franchise, I’d say she was the worst example period but that’s debatable considering how badly Uub was also mishandled in that show.

http://www.kanzenshuu.com/translations/dragon-ball-gt-dragon-book-gt-back-then-kozo-morishita-interview/

[analogscum]

HARD ROCK ZOMBIES (1985, d. Krishna Shah)

NOTE: I RECOMMEND WATCHING HARD ROCK ZOMBIES BEFORE READING THIS REVIEW IF YOU WANT TO AVOID SPOILERS!

Human ambition is a funny thing. It can lead to great triumphs, but also great tragedies. Without human ambition, we would not have rock n’ roll, the most vital of American art forms. On the other hand, human ambition also lead the Third Reich to exterminate more than six million Jews, Catholics, homosexuals, physically and mentally handicapped, and Romani people. How does this tie in to today’s film, Hard Rock Zombies? Well, for now, let’s just say that it is a testament to both sides of the coin of human ambition that the sickos who made Hard Rock Zombies said to themselves, we’re going to make Hard Rock Zombies…and then actually went out and made Hard Rock Zombies. I’m honestly not sure if I mean that as a compliment or not.

We open on two metalheads riding a T-Bird convertible down a winding desert road. Lo and behold, they stumble upon a buh-buh-buh-baaaaabe hitchhiking. What are they gonna do, NOT invite this bodacious blonde into their sweet ride? We now cut to a dwarf with an eyepatch and a troll dancing around with a guy holding a camera by a river. You read that right. The metalheads and the blonde pull up on the other side of the river, strip down to their skivvies, and do a little skinny dipping. Suddenly, she drowns each of them one by one! And also does something else, because the water turns blood red, but I have no idea what that could be. The camera guy takes pictures of this gristly scene, while the dwarf and the troll celebrate the carnage. They chop off one of the victims’ hands, blondie picks it up and sings “I wanna hold your hand.” Again, you read all of that right.

Cut to: our heroes, the band, whom the movie never bothers to name (seriously, this band has no name), rockin’ out before a sold out crowd. Right away, we’re confronted with the major problem of all of these 80s metal horror movies: these guys just do not sufficiently rock. I mean, they have a synth player, for cryin’ out loud! This was not too long after Van Halen risked losing their metal fanbase by adding synths to “Jump,” because synths were pop, and pop was for pussies. But seriously, these guys make Billy Joel sound like Napalm Death. Oh well, at least the crowd of roughly 12 people seems to be having a good time.

Backstage, the band strip down to their banana hammocks, and their manager, Ron, tells them that they have to have their photos taken with a bunch of groupies. None of the dudes in the band, especially the lead singer, Jesse, seem to want to do this. They’re incredibly ambivalent about potentially sleeping with these women. Which of course is par for the course for 80s metal bands. Most of Motley Crue’s autobiography, The Dirt, is about the dudes politely sipping Earl Grey tea and discussing Nietzsche. We soon get an idea as to why Jesse is not interested in all of these women who want to ride his mullet, and believe me, you’re not gonna like it.

As he’s escaping all of these annoying women who wanna show him their boobs, Jesse runs into Cassie. Now, the movie is not entirely clear on how old Cassie is supposed to be, but let’s just say she’s young. Like, teenage. Like, below the age of consent. She warns Jesse to stay out of the town of Grand Guignol (subtle), where the band is scheduled to play the next night. Jesse instantly falls in love with her, because this movie hates you, and we’re treated to white hot, sexually charged flirting such as this:

Jessie: You're neat.

Cassie: No, I'm not.

Jessie: Yeah, ya are.

Cassie: ...shakes head...

Jessie: Yeah, ya are.

Guys, it’s rare that I make a point of writing down dialogue in these movies that we talk about, but Hard Rock Zombies left me with no choice but to slam that pause button and record some of these lines, because holy macaroni, peep this screenwriting magic:

“I got it from a book. You know, a boooooooook?”

“You guys ready for the show? The loud show? Loud music show? Rock and roll?!?!”

“Oh bullshit, young stupid!”

“You suck, mister! I know it and everyone knows it!”

Eat your heart out, Aaron Sorkin!

So the band arrives in Grand Guignol, and wouldn’t you know it, they pick up the same hitchhiking blonde, who invites them to stay at her family’s mansion. The family is pretty normal, you’ve got blondie, the photographer, the dwarf, the troll, the groundskeeper who, um, is that a Swastika armband he’s wearing, and grandma and grandpa, who speak in thick German accents and we meet them while they’re in the bone zone and the dwarf and the troll are watching them. Oh, and by the way, they’re secretly Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, and Eva Braun is a werewolf. I PROMISE THAT ALL OF THIS IS TRUE.

As it turns out, everyone in Grand Guignol is a backwards rube who thinks that rock n’ roll is the devil’s music that will lead to “physical sex” (again, actual quote). So they get super duper outraged when the band engages in some antics that wouldn’t be out of place in an episode of The Monkees. They skateboard around, do silly dances, and mug for the camera. The sheriff throws them in jail, the town council cancels their concert, and outlaw all rock n’ roll in general, leading to a scene where everyone throws their records and tapes in a pile and destroys them (again, subtle).

Meanwhile, Jesse and Cassie keep running into each other and falling deeper and deeper in love, and the movie keeps rubbing our faces in their obvious age difference, because apparently the overt Nazi imagery wasn’t cringeworthy enough. Just wait until we get to the song he writes about her, because you’ll have to go to jail once you hear it. They practice at the creepy mansion, and the family tries to electrocute them. That doesn’t work, so instead they murder the band members one by one overnight. The drummer is stabbed in a terrible homage to the Psycho shower scene, the keyboardist is felled by werewolf Eva Braun, I don’t remember what happens to the guitarist, I think he falls out of a window or something, and Jesse is crucified and disembowled with a weed hacker by the groundskeeper. This means Hitler is finally ready to turn California into the fourth reich…here we go…no turning back…complete with gas chambers. Which come into play later. THIS IS ALL FROM A REAL MOVIE THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

Luckily, before he croaked, Jesse gave Cassie a tape he made of a bass lick that can raise the dead. Look, just roll with me here, ok? You’ve made it this far. So Cassie plays the tape at the band’s grave, and they rise from the dead, ready to get revenge on Hitler and Eva Braun and co. In zombie form, they all sport weird mime makeup that kinda looks like KISS in the early days before they figured out their image, and they walk around as if they’re doing a combination of the robot and the Macarena. These are both choices that the filmmakers made. So they pretty much instantly murderize the Hitler clan with no problems, but whoops, they don’t stay dead for long, because now they’re zombies too, and they’re attacking all the hicks in town, which makes THEM zombies. Now we’ve got Nazi zombies and redneck zombies running around, which is not an ideal situation to say the least, but for now, the band have to go play their big gig.

This is where we finally get to hear Jesse’s love ballad to Cassie in it’s entirety, and, well, here it is…

“I’m so in love, but you’re so young.” BARF BARF BARF BARF ETERNAL BARF. Anyway, see ya in jail, which is where I live now because of this song!

I’m really loathe to talk about the rest of the movie, because at this point, it takes a turn into goofy comedy, and just completely falls flat. Not that their satirical bits about the PMRC and anti-metal hysteria were all that biting, but at least they were trying to say something, whereas these Zucker brothers-lite groaners are just insufferable. There’s a gag about a girlfriend who’s so possessive of her boyfriend that she won’t let any other women get near his severed head after a zombie rips it off, which the filmmakers obviously thought was beyond hilarious, but is really torturous. Then there’s an even less funny gag where some Pointdexter is like, hey, since zombies are brainless, they must be, like, allergic to brains? So if we all walk around with these giant cardboard cutout heads, they’ll leave us alone? Huh? And of course it doesn’t work, and of course the zombies just eat everybody, and as he’s being devoured, the Pointdexter yells, “Don’t believe everything you read!” Ugggh, read this: you suck, movie.

OK, there is one running gag from this section that I liked: after the troll becomes a zombie, he just eats his own body until he’s a burping skull. I happened to think that was charming and great.

Eventually the townsfolk try to sacrifice Cassie to the zombies, because they read that if the undead feast upon a virgin, then they’ll rest for another hundred years. Whatever. So Cassie is totally about to be gang banged and devoured by zombie Hitler and his gang (wow, what a sentence), when luckily the band shows up, and lures them away by playing that resurrection riff that Jesse learned from a book (you know, a booooooook?!?!) And where do they lure them? Ugh, sorry…here goes…they lure them to the gas chambers, where they’re all gassed to death. You know, like in the Holocaust? I have nothing more to say.

The film ends, in perfect fashion, by spelling co-writer/director Krishna Shah’s name wrong in the credits. Fantastic.

When a movie looks particularly bad, I often like to say that it reminds me of a fake movie meant to play in the background of a real movie. Well, as it turns out, that’s the actual origin story of Hard Rock Zombies. Originally, the film was supposed to be 20 minutes long and featured as the movie the characters in another Krishna Shah production, American Drive-In, go to see. Apparently Shah decided at some point that he could double his profits by turning Hard Rock Zombies into its own feature film. This begs the question: is this where all the Nazi stuff was added? Because it’s easy to imagine characters in a movie occasionally checking in with the drive-in movie and seeing a bunch of rockers rising from the grave, but that Hitler subplot is just so bizarre and so incongruous that I can’t help but think it was tacked on.

Hard Rock Zombies is the craziest film I’ve seen in awhile. It approaches Demonwarp and Spookies levels of what the hell am I watching madness. You genuinely will not be able to predict where this movie is gonna go from scene to scene. However, the tacked on nature of that madness keeps you at arms length a bit, and eventually it just becomes tiresome once you realize it’s not going anywhere beyond mere shock value. I mean, this movie is nearly an hour and forty minutes, and ends with a scene in a goddamn GAS CHAMBER. So, by all means, show this one to your friends, just don’t blame me if they never talk to you again. You may be right, they may be crazy, but in the end, it’s still rock n’ roll to me.

[bizarrebird]

Guys. Guys. Guys. It’s the first Spike episode. He’s here. My shitty boy is here. Full disclosure, Spike is and always has been my favorite character and I do in fact ship Spuffy (yes I am fully aware of the fact that it becomes terrible in season 6 and believe me, I’ll talk about that when we get there. It’s bad, Spike is bad, the writing is bad, and I hate all of it) but this is not gonna become all Spuffy all the time, I promise. Even this one, no, this liveblog is about appreciating my mom Joyce Summers

So without further ado Season 2, Episode 3: School Hard

We start in Snyder’s office where he’s in full lecture mode to Buffy and random girl (Sheila) about how they’re both super troublesome because Sheila stabbed a teacher with pruning shears (hardcore but what the fuck) and Buffy burned down a gym*. Synder tells them that Parent-Teacher night is coming up and, to avoid expulsion, they’re in charge of setting it up and if they do well, he will tell their parents they aren’t complete gremlins. Buffy clearly wants to toe the line and Sheila doesn’t give a crap and runs off to make out with someone who she calls ‘meatboy’ (I have questions Sheila) Xander and Willow show up for playful banter and discuss the situation and then Xander jinxes everything cause he’s a fuck

And now we cut to the bEST FUCKING ENTRANCE EVER as a car mows down the ‘Welcome to Sunnydale’ sign, blaring music and outsteps my shit boy in all his duster wearing, bleach blonde, vampire glory. There he is. That motherfucker. Spike. And here we mark where the show really gets good** before we go to OPENING CREDITS

After the credits we see some generic vamps and the anointed babby talking about who’s gonna step up now that the Master’s gone. I guess there’s an evil power vacuum or something going on? but no one wants the gig cause Buffy will make whoever steps up dust. Random Vampire says he’ll kill her cause some vampire holiday is coming up that gives them more power, so it’s the perfect time to strike. He’s all speechifying and bragging when Spike (my sweet shitlord) cuts him off and calls him on his shit, cause Spike’s the guy you call when someone needs a dick slapped out of their mouth

Spike starts talking to the baby, saying he knows about the slayer problem and he can help cause he’s already killed two before (one of them who’s coat he’s wearing right now) But he trails off when Drusilla walks in, looking all dainty and lovely and he drops the vamp face case he’s gotta go be soft with her. We get the idea pretty quick that Dru isn’t all there and Spike makes mention of the fact that she’s weak for some reason (I think it’s explained later, but I can’t remember the exact details off the top of my head rn) Spike and Dru do their sweet, but creepy weird thing and he announces they’re moving in and that he’ll deal with Buffy as long as the baby keeps his goons in line

Now we go to Buffy and Joyce in the old Summers abode. Mama Joyce has apparently not been told by Buffy that parent-teacher night is happening and they have some serious talks about Buffy’s previous issues and how moving was hard on both of them. The scene closes out with Buffy being clearly iffy on her feelings about not telling her mom the truth about the slaying stuff and then we go back to high school and prep for parent-teacher night. Buffy (in adorable overalls) works on decorations with Willow and Xander’s there too I guess, and they decide to go to the Bronze because Angel, which means she has a million things to balance and here come Giles and Jenny with one more thing to add to the pile: super vampire night

Giles is... kind of a dick about things, saying slaying has to come first, but Willow and Xander volunteer to help to try to lighten the load. And here comes Giles with the Watcher’s shittiest rule that the slayer must fight alone because reasons???? (no like what the fuck, it’s the shittiest rule and clearly that hasn’t helped all the previous slayers not die, fuck the watcher’s council honestly) Synder shows up and notices Sheila isn’t there. Buffy covers for her just in time for a clearly hungover Sheila to show up and ask Buffy about the burning down a building thing (cause Joss just really loves sucking his own creative dick)

And we go to the Bronze where Buffy’s trying to study and party simultaneously and that’s going about as well as you’d expect. Buffy’s hoping Angel will show up, but so far nothing, so she agrees to dance with Xander as we see Spike looming in the back of the club. He talks one of his lackeys into attacking a random club goer and then loudly announces someone’s being attacked so he can watch Buffy in action (and he doesn’t have heart eyes yet, but like... you know he’s into it) Xander manages to not be a useless slug boy and goes and grabs Buffy a stake from her purse so she can kill rando vamp. Spike then slow claps (cause yes, even my baby is a tool) and says he’s gonna come after her on Saturday when the vamps get all super charged and slinks away

Next we see Sheila leaving the club with two random guys, who get yanked away off camera and then SURPRISE SPIKE RIGHT BEHIND HER. He flirts and it’s creepy and we know it’s not gonna end well. Cut to the library with the Scoobies trying to research Spike and coming up empty. Luckily Angel shows up then and he knows what’s up with Spike although Buffy’s a little more interested in why he didn’t show up earlier. But then just as people are asking Angel about Spike, Angel just leaves cause drama and he’s an asshole

There’s dramatic music and some chanting as we move to Drusilla being creepy with some dolls. Spike tries to talk her into eating because she’s weak (something something mob in Prague), but Dru just wants to be weird and tells Spike he has to get the other vamps to trust him more. He agrees, on the condition that she eat Sheila. The scene cuts before we see what happens and we find the Scoobies prepping for parent-teacher night and super vamp throwdown

Parent-teacher night begins and Buffy’s big plan is to just stop Snyder from getting anywhere near Joyce (fair, he’s a disgusting lizard man) Buffy is stressing as Cordy approaches and tells her her mom is super hot (not in those exact words, but listen Cordelia is bi and she’s a queen) Joyce mentions that she’s having a strangely difficult time actually talking to any of Buffy’s teachers, how strange. This of course is wen Snyder finally catches up with her and asks to speak to her in his office. insert scare chord here

Meanwhile in the library, Giles finds a book talking about Spike and his old moniker ‘William the Bloody’ and that he has killed two slayers, so he means business. Back with Buffy we see Snyder and Joyce return and clearly Mama Summers isn’t happy with whatever he told her (idk what the fuck he even would tell her, Buffy has don’t nothing wrong ever in her life and the lizard man is just mad that he can’t ever hope to be as pretty as her) As Synder’s turning off the lights on parent-teacher night the school windows get smashed as like a dozen vampires burst through cause Spike got tired of waiting and decided to  say fuck it and attack early. Great idea there. I love this guy, but he’s an idiot

Buffy leaps into action and gets her mom and most other people to safety. Cordelia and Willow get attacked by a vamp, but Willow saves Cordy and the two of them stumble into a supply closet to have their shared gay awakenings (okay listen it would be a good ship, I swear) Buffy tries to get everyone into the library, but vampires cut them off and she has to herd them into a different room. The power goes out and one of Spike’s lackeys says they lost the slayer. Annoyed, Spike murders a random teacher/parent and decides if he wants something done right, he has to do it himself

Giles apparently has a secret way out through the library and sends Xander (after some whining) to go get Angel cause he knows Spike somehow. Back in the classroom Snyder’s a little shit and wants to bust out the windows to run, but Buffy tells him not to and starts giving orders before making to head into the vents. Joyce tries to stop her, but Buffy goes anyway (mooooom, all the other kids get to fight demons) Spike’s wandering the halls being creepy and passes right by Cordelia and Willow’s hiding place. Cordy starts panicking, so Willow gets all up close and personal to put a hand over her mouth (hey Willow, you know another way you could keep her quiet wink wink nudge nudge IT’S REAL GAY IN THAT CLOSET LISTEN)

In the library, Giles is about to bust out to go help Buffy (who has to work alone now, huh? Look I’m glad he’s being less shitty now, but I’m still holding that line against him, that was garbage) But the air vent above him opens and surprise ceiling Buffy is here now. She insists she’s gonna handle all the vamps, just like Giles told her too, and she has to do it alone, just like Giles told her too (HMM PERCHANCE A PATTERN IS HAPPENING HERE) And she tells Giles that he’s gotta get her mom and the others out in case she doesn’t make it back

Back in the classroom, Snyder’s being a dipshit and Joyce is telling him not to and being a proud mama saying they should listen to what Buffy says. Snyder’s a fuck stick and convinces another guy to go out the window anyway (guess how that’s gonna go) Out in the hall, Spike finds a fireaxe (that they just... have in a school??? really???? no one thinks this is a safety hazard???? okaaaay) and in three two one--the guy Snyder sends through the window gets munched on. Who could have guessed. Joyce quickly shuts the window and is a big enough person not to say ‘I told you so’ even though it’s totally warranted

Xander gets there with Angel, who goes all vamp mode and pretends he caught Xander. Meanwhile Cordy and Willow are still in that closet, sitting real close cause they’re totes gay. Buffy’s still in the ceiling, which Spike has picked up on and he starts trying to force her out. She pops out right on top of the vamp trying to get at Joyce and the others and stakes the shit out of him. Joyce, who is also a queen, tells Buffy to save herself, but Buffy says nah. Surprise Sheila from nowhere, who Buffy tells to go hide, but she grabs a fireaxe and follows Buffy to ‘help’

In another hallway, Spike’s still jabbing the ceiling fishing for Buffy when Angel shows up all vamp face. Spike calls him ‘Angelus’ (huh wonder what that’s about) They hug and that’s not a bro hug cause these fellas are bi (Joss can deny it all he wants, but they are. We all know it, say they’re bi Joss, say it you coward***) They shoot the shit, clearly showing they go waaaaay back. Angel’s putting on a decent act, which Xander apparently falls for cause he is instantly down to believe any guy who’s into Buffy**** is super evil, and he offers to let Spike snack on him

Meanwhile, Buffy’s about to do some slaying, but we see Sheila behind her all vamped out, not surprising, but kinda sad. Giles sees her through the window and yells warning her to look out. Buffy ducks and stakes the first vamp, but lets Sheila get away. With the way clear, she has Giles get her mom and the others out and, despite Joyce trying to get her to come along, Buffy doesn’t go. There’s more vamps to slay

Back with our totally hetero boys who are about to share a tasty Xander snack, Spike asks Angel why he hasn’t killed Buffy and he says seeing her kill the master made him play good vamp. Spike goes with it for two seconds and then punches out Angel, cause he knows he’s full of shit and starts getting really upset and emotional, you know the way a totally straight dude would when his totally straight friend bro betrays him. He moves in for the kill, but Angel and Xander book it out the door. Before Spike can follow, he hears a Buffy sound that draws his attention

Spike brags a little about the last slayer he killed begging for her life, but says he doesn’t think Buffy will do that (correct, he knows a tough lady when he sees one and he respects that) He then says that he’ll make it quick and try not to let it hurt when he kills her and sounds weirdly genuine about it, not that Buffy pays that much attention, cause she’s soooo not impressed with him. They fight and it’s super hot. Meanwhile outside, Xander’s getting his ass kicked and Angel saves him as Giles gets the civilians out, but Mama Summers stops cause Buffy still isn’t there and she has to protect her baby

Spike manages to get the upper hand, but then FIREAXE TO THE BACK OF THE HEAD AND JOYCE TO THE FUCKING RESCUE with a “You get the hell away from my daughter”

Joyce telling bitches to back off her daughter before it was cool, I love her so, so much

Spike runs off cause two powerful Summers ladies is waaaaay too much for him to handle. Joyce and Buffy hug and it’s wonderful and everything is good (wonder how long that will last, fuck you Joss) Snyder’s shown talking to the cops, who seem to know something’s up with the situation, syaing they’re going to tell the press the “usual story” and cover the vamp attack as gang violence, showing people in town aren’t quite as out of the loop as they’ve seemed. Giles and Jenny talk and flirt and that’s cute. We see Angel and Xander talking about the situation before, Angel makes excuses, and Xander whines

Buffy and Joyce walk together and Joyce is so proud and I’m gonna cry. Oh also, Cordelia and Willow are still in the closet and really, they should just make out already to pass the time

We go back to the anointed bab’s hideout where Spike’s complaining about this slayer having family and friends makes her harder to deal with (HUH WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT WATCHER’S COUNCIL HOW FUCKING INTERESTING) Dru reassures him before he goes to talk to the anointed one, who grumps at him for not killing Buffy. Spike makes it two words into an apology before changing his tune and putting the baby vamp into a cage, which he lifts into the light of the sun to burn him up, officially making him and Dru the new big bads in town

FINAL THOUGHTS: Good episode, my son is here now and we’re onto more personal conflicts, which is very much a good thing. Also Joyce was a shining star here and I love her.

For the record I’m gonna skip Inca Mummy Girl and Reptile Boy cause you couldn’t pay me enough to watch that first episode suck Xander’s dick, and the second one is very meh filler and Cordelia’s already been captured twice this season and I’m kinda tired of that.

So next up is Season 2, Episode 6: Halloween

*Ooookay so this probably confuses some people, and for good reason. See we don’t see Buffy burn down a gym ever in the show. This is because it was supposed to happen in the preceding Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie. To those of you who have seen that movie (I’m so, so sorry) that probably doesn’t make this make any more sense because no gyms burned down there. This is because the gym burned down in Joss Whedon’s original script for said movie, but it never made it to the film because the movie was a fucking trainwreck and you can literally see the point where he started to lose any creative control. However, that doesn’t stop Joss from thinking that scrip was god’s gift to cinema and will insist on referencing it and treating it as canon despite, you know, it never being more than just a script

**I don’t mean just because of Spike, though he does play a part in it. See, this is the turning point away from the more generic doomsday villains like the Master, who was vaguely threatening, but kind of a nothing entity, and go for more personal villains and overarching plots, which is really what makes the show special. Spike, Drusilla and *SPOILERS* later Angelus were the first villains who really made things super personal for Buffy and the Scoobies, giving the conflicts new depth and intrigue. Not that the show was bad before this, but this episode really marks where it starts Growing the Beard as tropers would say

***For the record, this is not shipping goggles talking. This is due to the fact that, in later seasons of Buffy and Angel, the Spike/Angel dynamic is played up a lot. There is very clear if not romantic, at least sensual and sexual subtext here, culminating with Spike’s line in season 5 of Angel “Angel and I were never intimate, well, except that one time” indicating that there is some kind of sexual history there. Joss Whedon has also vagued in interviews saying (paraphrasing cause I don’t remember the exact words) “they’re open minded guys, y’know they’ve been together for so long, something must’ve happened there” However, he won’t say they or any other characters are bi cause Joss Whedon doesn’t think bisexuals exist, despite the fact that he has written several bisexual characters whether he will admit it or not

****Any guy except Riley, who, when we get there, Xander’s never gonna shut up about how great he is and how really Buffy is the one that doesn’t deserve Riley cause of that cool thing Xander does where his mouth moves, but Joss Whedon talks

[dxrksong]

A strange crossover chapter 2

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!!!

also happy new  years!!!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 After talking with each other the other, ‘Henry’ INSISTED on Henry staying at his house. He couldn’t fathom why, the only thing they shared as far as he could tell was the oddly coincidental name. It was odd though, if Henry didn’t know any better he’d say that the bad feeling was coming from the other Henry. That thought alone made him weary of the strangely kind man? Kid? Who exactly was he? He sounded young, but at the same time knowledgeable. Like he’s lived longer than most humans. He shivered, unknowing of what next, but he did know one thing: he needed to get back to the toons as soon as possible.     

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Henry had invited the ‘other’ Henry to stay at his house for a while. Annette was there too, but just to check up on ‘her’ Henry. She brought over a box of cupcakes, since the Henry she knew was obsessed with anything sweet.

“So.. This is kind of awkward right? I mean there's two of you! I mean you don't look alike but it's still weird, I mean what are the chances?!”

Annette realized she was rambling so she just stopped talking entirely, feeling embarrassed.

“Nah it's fine, I mean I agree with you; but it's fine! I just hope the other Henry likes cupcakes! If he doesn't, just give them to me.” He whispered the last part, sending them both into a fit of laughter.

“Where is the other guy anyway?” Annette looked around, the house looked as normal as ever. Not a single sign of another presence.

“Oh the other Henry is in one of the guest rooms, or at least I think he is.. I haven't heard a single sound from upstairs. Maybe he’s sleeping. Heh, more cupcakes for me!” Annette laughed again.

“Henry I seriously think you need help for your sugar addiction!” They both laughed again sharing the cupcakes. Annette couldn't let him have all of them! After all she didn't want him to get sick from all that sugar.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile on the roof --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Henry stood at the edge of the roof, feeling the cool breeze on his skin while it whisked past him. He wasn’t entirely sure how or why he was up there but he was concentrating on something nonetheless.

 What was it? Ah yes, his location! Of course! But how was he going to do that? A tug in his mind told him to climb higher. But he was sure he was on the tallest building nearby. But it was still there, tugging at something behind him. He turned and soon found a ladder. ‘Huh, convenient’ he thought as he started to climb.

  At the top he found out that his hearing had increased by a lot. He listened intently like the tug in his mind told him to. Personal stuff, angry customer, a woman asking for directions, an angry driver- wait! A women asking for directions? He tried to zone in on the conversation.

  “Excuse me, but can you help me get to (insert important city nearby the studio’s neighboring one)?” the women she was talking to let out a small gasp. “Oh my dear! That’s on the other side of the state! How did you get this far off track?!”

  Henry stop listening entirely after that. “Halfway across the state…” he mumbled to himself. He suddenly felt light headed and started to waver “I’m halfway across the state.” but that was IMPOSSIBLE unless….he had definitely been gone from the studio longer than a day. OH GOD HOW LONG HAD IT BEEN?! Henry started to panic and put his hands on his head, before he suddenly lost consciousness and fell backwards, unaware that people were shouting at him and that ‘Henry’ and Annette were right below him, trying to talk him down.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Henry woke up with a start, sweat practically flowing off his head as he shot up in a storm of panic and sorrow. Where was he? It looks like a bedroom of sorts but- wait...LOOKS?!

He looked down at his hands before a wave of pain washed over his eyes and spreaded throughout his face and he let out a howl of agony as he quickly closed his eyes and put his face in his hands and continued to whimper as the waves started to hurt less when he heard footsteps rush up the stairs.

  He could already tell who it was before ‘Henry’ practically broke the door down and rushed to his side.

“Hey I heard screaming are you alright?” ‘Henry’ saw that the other Henry looked to be in an enormous amount of pain.

“Oh yeah, just great- DO YOU THINK THIS IS A GAME?!” Henry said lifting his face and ripping off his bandages revealing the black veins covering the top of his face and the inky substance coming out of his eyes.

“Hey there's no need to yell! I’m only trying to help you-” ‘Henry’ paused, when he noticed the ink leaking from the man’s eyes. It was absolutely disturbing, making him want to scream.

“Oh my god! What the heck happened to your eyes?! I mean the doctor said it was bad, but I wasn't expecting this!”

“Heh, well it helps when ink is practically infused into your bloodstream. I still don’t know when but I think it was removable until I collapsed the first time- IN A FUCKING SUMMONING CIRCLE DRAWN BY SOMEONE WHO WILL NOT BE NAMED!!!”

“Okay first of all! There’s no swearing in this house! Secondly, I literally gave you a place to stay for a bit. The least you can do is thank me.”

“Your right, I’m sorry. And thank you. I’m just a little on edge since one, I can't remember how i managed to get half-way across the ENTIRE state from where I was! And two I’M HALF-WAY ACROSS THE STATE!!!!!!” This was totally a good time to freak out right now.

“Um… I hate to break it to you.. but you’re not half-way across the state. This is the province of British Columbia. You’re in Canada..”

“.........SO I’M EVEN FURTHER THAN I THOUGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!” He leaned on his side and is now crying, completely freaking out.

“How am I supposed to get to the toons now?” he whispered to himself.

“Okay.. I don't mean to be making assumptions, but if you have the same name as me. First and last! You have ink coming from your eyes and you spoke about toons.. does this mean, that you’re not from this dimension..? Because I can't see any other reason for this, it's the only thing that would make sense..”

Henry pondered this for a minute. This was true but if he was here and the other one was too does that would mean.. he slowly got up,hope blooming in his chest. He suddenly grabbed the other Henry’s shoulders.

“Hey! If that’s true then there’s a Silly Vision studio near here right?”

“Uh.. yeah, it's pretty close actually.. why are you asking?”

“Let’s just say. I made a promise to someone.”

“So PLEASE! Tell me where it is! I need to get there as soon as possible! It would be a bloodbath and a mess I don’t want to deal with if bendy lets those searchers loose after me.”

“Well.. Annette and I were planning on going, so I guess you could come too.. but is Bendy really real in your world? I didn't get very far the first time I re-visited. I left after I activated the ink machine, the door was oddly unlocked.”

“...Of course Bendy’s real! What do you take me for? A blind idiot?” Henry jokingly said, smiling and letting go of his doppleganger’s (in terms of names) shoulders.

“No, I don't think you’re an idiot! I did see that corpse of Boris.. but that's all I really saw, besides the creepy moving cutouts and some ink splattered here and there.”

“Just be glad the place didn’t start flooding as soon as the machine was turned on, I almost drowned in that stuff, it went up to my freakin neck!”

“Oh yeah! Well once I got this weird letter at my door, and I opened it; and ink exploded everywhere! There was this monster it nearly mauled me to death!”

“Sounds like a searcher, and you wouldn’t believe how MANY there were in the lower levels!”

“A S-Searcher? Hmm.. so that's what that thing was.. it actually gave me ink poisoning when it cut me. The doctors couldn't remove it for some reason, but I've been feeling pretty okay so.. I think I'll be alright.”

“The weird thing though.. is that I can't remember what happened too well.. It's like one minute it's trying to tear me to shreds, then the next I'm lying on a hospital bed. Annette was there with me..”

“.. i’ll probably ask her ‘bout that later, but for now.. Who’s that kid that’s been staring something fierce into my back for the past few minutes through the window now?” Henry pointed behind him where the bad feeling was kicking up something fierce.

‘Henry’ rushed to the window to see a little boy looking up at them. He waved to him. “Oh hey Vinny, I think you probably shouldn't be here Annette’s just going to get mad at you!”

“I don’t think he cares” he whispered.

‘Henry’ turned to look at the other Henry, giving him a silly smile. Before turning back towards the window, gasping in surprise. “H-Hey! He’s gone?!”

“Hullo..” Said a tiny British voice, coming from behind them. Both men screamed and jumped.

Out of reflex he turned the door and wished he had his axe so he didn’t look so silly. Henry was in a startled position, holding an invisible/imaginary weapon.

Vincent stood in the doorway, watching them with a satisfied expression.

“So.. Let me guess.. his name is exactly the same as yours. Oh and sir, you should keep those bandages on. You might frighten someone..”

Henry internally pouted. ‘But i dun like them TwT’ he visibly cringed at that.

“Okay! Vincent you have got to stop doing that, it's creepy! Wait.. how did you do that in the first place..?” The child gave him a sweet smile, ignoring the question on purpose. Much to ‘Henry’s’ annoyance.

“Seeing about your aging problem, I assumed magic was normal in this place” Henry mumbled, mostly to himself.

“Pffft! Magic isn’t real! Oh.. actually maybe I should take that back.. It makes sense when we're talking about the studio..”

Henry gave him a cheesy grin, this was actually hilarious to him. “Joey once again proves something non-directly in a conversation.” he let out a small fit of laughter, failing miserably to keep it back.

“Well anyway, we shouldn't go yet. You still need to heal, and you! Vincent you need to get to school, before Annette notices you’re here.”

Henry let out a small gasp “NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! I’M LEAVING NOW!!” he marched to the door.

Vincent watched in amusement. Thinking: ‘Hmm, and people call me a child. Well then again I am only eight..”

(Hen-hen needs a chill pill XD)

He only made it out the door when a pair of arms wrapped around his chest. He could tell by the breathing that it was ‘Henry’ but that didn’t stop him from trying!

Vincent giggled at bit, slamming the door. Freaking both of them out, ‘Henry’ let go and wondered if that kid had some kind of telekinesis. However now wasn't the time to question it.

“I swear if that kid is giggling about what I think he is, I’m going to sic Joey on him”

“Nah man, let him have his fun. The kid doesn't have any parents or friends.. so just be nice to him okay?”

“.. Alright” he sighed, the kid reminded him of Bendy. Popping out of nowhere, random powers off the who how, just flat out being a devil…he shook his head, as far as he could tell the kid wasn’t THAT bad. He calmed down at the thought of his toons and friends. Crips was he worried about them.

“Can I come to the studio too Mr Williams? I'm curious to see what's inside..” The small boy asked.

Both Henry’s looked at each other. Henry personally how much BS is gonna go down and with someone else to protect- his mind immediately went to those in the studio.”yeeeeaaaaahhh NO!!”

Vincent just shrugged.

“I am NOT letting another one to go through Sammy’s BS and the ritual crap Joey's been doing! And you don’t wanna KNOW what Susie’s been up to!!!”

The child’s eyes practically lit up. The word ‘ritual’ definitely peaked his interest. This is something he knew he had to see.

The ink from Henry’s eyes somehow made its way to his shoulders because after he shouted and noticed the kids heart beat went up, the ink started to rise like a feral cat’s back as he shouted: “Don’t you DARE young man! I know EXACTLY what your gonna do!”

“Can you really though..? If I ask you to guess what I'm thinking, I highly doubt that you’ll get it right.”

“Your thinking of getting inside the studio anyway” Henry said, crossing his arms. “But fine! Go ahead! But I’m telling you if I go in there and you have a projector for a head, been fused into someone or SOMETHING else, OR HAVE GONE COMPLETELY INSANE. I’m not gonna feel a lick of remorse.” Henry said flatly.

“Ah.. you got part of it right, although you'll never know the reason.. also that was an oddly specific warning.. I don't suppose any of this really happened to you did it?”

Henry froze on the spot, frowning. He paused, then he sighed and said “no….but it did happen to some really close friends of mine.” his eyes started to water again, he looked awfully pale.

The boy softened his expression, with a sudden feeling of empathy. “I understand.. if you don't want to speak of them then don't. I've lost people too..”

“Just.. if you go in there, be ready for some hardcore gore kiddo.” he said sitting on his bed. “Those creatures- those THINGS in there. Were human- and STILL are. Every last one of them…”

“Are you suggesting that.. They’ve been corrupted into monsters?” His eyes narrowed. Making the small, weak-looking boy seem almost predatory.

“Heh…” he wiped a tear away before it became a fruitless attempt of ink. “A-almost. They’re mostly human but made out of ink. Some lost their minds, others their memories. And some are just…..shards of previous co-workers…corpses...t-then there’s those who’ve kept most of their sanity, helpful and loving even!” he said, remembering Bendy and Boris. “But the ink itself…..” he stopped talking and started shivering uncontrollably.

‘Henry’ suddenly joins back into the conversation. “W-Wait.. are you saying that there are people trapped down there..? M-My friends?!”

Henry sniffed, more ink running down his face. “T-the ink. It rips you apart till your in pieces, floating there LIKE FISH IN A BOWL!” He mimicked “alice” in a way. “But th-that’s not it. It doesn’t stop there. The voices of the fallen are shouting- SCREAMING even! It swallows you whole, with no escape. But I’ve luckily...never actually had a real encounter with it. ‘She’ told me about it and I’ve actually seen it suck up random monstrosities in the halls. It still isn’t very safe to be near but you can’t exactly avoid it…”

“I.. I'm all alone then.. Everyone is trapped and I.. got freedom? T-This isn't fair..!” ‘Henry’ took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, which began to tear up as well.

Henry frowned. The other was supposed to be a goof like him. But maybe it was because HE knew what happened to them. Or he was just losing his mind, but he didn’t feel as much pain as he could hear his double was in. he unsteadily got up and wrapped ‘Henry’ into a bear hug, staying silent and keeping an ear out in-case the kid wanted to join in too.

The boy stayed silent. He knew that this was a very emotional moment for the two Henry's and didn't want to be rude.

As his double buried himself in his hug he slowly opened his eyes as much as he could for the burn to be durable enough and he looked at the kid. His right iris was paper white with black seemingly taking over on the edge of the eye itself and seemed to be glowing slightly. while his left eye looked to be a green color but it was darkened and seemed lifeless or fake.

‘Hmm.. interesting, I wonder what kind of dark magic it is that we’re going to be dealing with..’ The boy thought.

He pulled his double away. “Come on, you gotta man up.” he looked at him in his still watery eyes. “They’re still alive! We can still come back to the studio and fix (most of) this mess!”

“Uh.. are your eyes okay?”

“What? Do they spook you?”

“Nah not really I mean well Vincent has violet eyes so I'm a bit used to odd colours but this is just different..”

“Mmmm?” “BOO!” out of nowhere Henry suddenly opened his eyes fully and his left eye seemed to respond as both eyes looked ‘Henry’ directly in his eyes as Henry shouted and almost immediately recoiled in pain and collapsed on the bed. “WorTh iiiiiiiiiiittttttttt”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

so yeah! that’s the second chapter! basically Hen-hen almost accidentally commits suicide and then needs some chill pills, ‘Henry’ has a sugar problem, and Vincent trolls the both of them.

[keyofjetwolf]

Jet Wolf Summarizes Act 41

The manga and I kind of hate each other. This is unfortunate, but still, I’m determined to come out of this with something. Rather than spend energy on a liveblog that’s increasingly negative, I’m reading each manga act (mostly) silently, and then writing up summaries at the end. I won’t pull my punches. There’s going to be criticism and snark about the manga, either wholesale or in details. If that isn’t a thing you feel like reading, please skip this post!

Rei gets a chapter! I NOW KNOW TRUE FEAR. My nights are still haunted by the spectre known as “Casablanca Memories”. I’m in no rush to compound the screams.

So we start with Pegasus! Ah yes. I feel better already.

Chibi-Usa is tearfully running away after her last encounter with Pegasus, proving once again that she’s the most relatable character in the entire manga. She admits she feels bad for running, but she just couldn’t handle how Usagi was so much better than her. She doesn’t add “and gets everything while I don’t even have my own name or Senshi title or fucking BIRTHDAY”, but that’s okay, I thought it for her. Chibs wishes she could be the one to help Pegasus, and I just want to reach through the pages and be “Oh, honey. No you don’t.”

This seems the perfect time for everything to get really creepy! Pegasus shows up and kisses her in her moment of existential child angst. Ew, right? Oh no, it’s okay, because mid-kiss, he turns into a 10,000 year old teenage boy! IT’S TOTALLY LESS CREEPY NOW.

WHAT ARE YOUR HANDS WHAT ARE THEY DOING WHY AM I HAVING TO LOOK AT THEM AND POSE THESE QUESTIONS. He says he’ll still come see Chibi-Usa all the time. HOW COMFORTING

Pegasus is also still captive though, and Nehellenia taunts him. She never petulantly smacks his cage, however, and I feel this is a missed opportunity.

Blah blah bad guy stuff.

At TA, Rei is practicing archery.

Because she doesn’t get a bullseye, the instructor is “Holy shit, Hino, what the fuck?” to which Rei doesn’t reply “YOU DEIGN TO SPEAK TO ME MALE I WILL SHOOT OFF YOUR TESTICLES AND WEAR THEM AS EARRINGS”, but I think we all know that was in her heart.

Turns out Rei really is distracted though. There’s all this Senshi shit, plus her grandpa is sick, so she has to step it up at the Shrine, and hey, wasn’t this the background set up for Episode 30? She refuses to hire any help for the most glorious of reasons, so Minako suggests Rei get married instead for free slave labour.

Finally, someone’s talking sense.

Before Minako can offer herself as son-in-law, the plot deliverers cats show up and order everyone to the Dead Moon Circus to investigate. Rei checks in on grandpa first, giving him the opportunity to lay down some context for the events to come because gods know there was no possible opportunity to consider building these characters in the forty issues leading up to this.

Rei thinks about her future, wanting nothing more than to stay at the shrine. Grandpa watched episode 152 and feels differently. Also, in flashback, we see Rei naming Phobos and Deimos after two seconds at Hikawa. THIS IS THE THIRD SCENE WITH THE CROWS TODAY GOSH I WONDER IF THEY AND THEIR CONNECTION TO REI WILL BECOME STARTLINGLY RELEVANT LATER

At the circus, they discover that front row seats are a hundred bucks a pop and-- NO NO “AND” WHAT THE SHIT THIS IS THE MOST RIDICULOUS YOU NEED PEOPLE TO POWER UP YOUR DOOMAFLITCHY WHOSITS THING AND CONQUER THE WORLD WHY DO YOU ALSO NEED CASH YOU’RE AN IDIOT ZIRCONIA

They all split up to look around, by which I mean Usagi, Mamoru, and Chibs shed the dead weight as quickly as fucking possible. Rei gets distracted and also leaves the others, captivated by the Mirror Funhouse. She goes inside and the door disappears behind her. Phobos and Deimos are not happy. DID I MENTION THEY’RE HERE TOO I KNOW THIS WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO FORESEE

The others meet back up before the show’s going to start. They notice the cats are missing before they notice Rei, but when they DO notice, they also don’t give a shit, which I think seems like a totally reasonable course of action when you’re infiltrating a suspected enemy lair and one of your friends disappears. THERE MAY BE ACROBATS INSIDE YOU GUYS FUCK REI. The show starts to get weird though, and Mamoru notices there’s no way out. I too feel this way when you’re on-panel, Mamoru.

Meanwhile Rei wanders through the mirrors when they begin to “reflect [her] true self”, a disembodied narrative voice tells her and us.

Neither of you are yelling at the other for asking stupid questions, so I frankly don’t think EITHER of you are you.

“Rei Hino, this is your life!” littler Rei says, mentioning how her mother died and her father was a fucking asshole, and Rei’s never felt happiness despite wanting to. Her friends take advantage of her, Little Rei says, and she’d be better off making out with Tiger’s Eye.

REALLY THAT’S THE CONCLUSION REACHED

LET THIS BE A LESSON TO YOU KIDS: IT CAN ALWAYS GET WORSE

Rei snaps out of it and ofudas him though, turning him back into a tiger, but that only makes PallaPalla pour on the magic. PallaPalla hates narrative convenience. They renew the marriage angle, and I have to admit that I enjoy the purity of Rei’s response.

“THIS IS BULLSHIT AND I WILL BURNING MANDALA MY WAY OUT OF HERE”

It doesn’t work though and she ... faints or gets a power backlash or knocks herself out by walking into a mirror. It’s unclear. She’s down though, and PallaPalla’s like “YOU’RE A TIGER SO EAT HER”, and honestly this is the most direct and efficient I think a Sailor Moon villain has ever been.

Meanwhile, the cats are pouting (they weren’t allowed in the big top) and notice Phobos and Deimos are losing their shit. “Huh, weird! Oh well,” say the cats. “CAW CAW MOTHERFUCKER” say the crows, and they divebomb the funhouse, busting through the roof and then turning into Archangel from X-Men for a minute as they fling their feathers like fucking shuriken and impale Tiger’s Eye. Hey, so, uh, you guys remind me to not forget to put food out for the crows EVER, okay.

All that’s cool, and I’m glad, because when we go back to Rei, everything is awful.

Oh you have got to be shitting me.

PHOBOS AND DEIMOS AREN’T REALLY CROWS THEY’RE TWO TINY LITTLE WOMEN IS REI MOTHRA WHAT EVEN IS THIS

Good fucking god I hate Takeuchi’s thing about turning animals into people BUT I NEVER KNEW SHE DID THIS TO REI’S CROWS THIS IS NOT CUTE IT’S FUCKING WEIRD

THESE GIRLS OR SPIRITS OR WHATEVER HAVE BEEN TRAPPED IN THE BODY OF GODDAMN CROWS SINCE REI WAS LIKE FOUR AND MAYBE LONGER

NOT TO EVEN GET INTO WHO THE FUCK THEY REALLY ARE AND WHY AND HOW THEY’RE HERE AND HOW THAT WORKS WITH LITERALLY ANY OF THE BACKSTORY THIS IS SO POORLY THOUGHT OUT AND EXECUTED AND I’M SO IRRITATED BY IT

WAS IT BECAUSE I WAS DARING TO ALMOST ENJOY AN ISSUE WAS THAT WHY

Ugh, anyway, watch how fast I dismiss every last inch of this fuckery.

Rei powers up, and then “remembers” an inspiring speech from Michiru, which as we discussed last time with Ami and Pluto is grade A bullshit. But if we assume this is all just a dream by Rei -- AND I ASSURE YOU I DO -- then it becomes hilarious. Rei conjuring up some hazy Michiru ideal, specifically to fluff up her ego.

OF COURSE MICHIRU, THE WOMAN WHO SPEAKS ALMOST ENTIRELY IN IMPLICATION, WITH NO WORDS OF EFFUSIVE PRAISE FOR ANYONE BUT MAYBE HARUKA HAVING A VERY EMOTIONALLY FRAGILE DAY, WOULD GIVE A REI A SPEECH THAT BASICALLY AMOUNTS TO “Why yes, Rei, being near flawless and of impeccable class and breeding, I can confirm that you are in fact superior to literally everyone you ever have or ever will meet, and it was vitally important that I and I alone communicate this truth to you.”

TELL ME YOU CAN’T SEE REI’S SUBCONSCIOUS GOING EXACTLY HERE

At any rate, Rei conjures up her Mars Flame Sniper and fucking explodes Tiger’s Eye, and whatever else I have to say about the manga, this was an infinitely more satisfying end to the character than the anime gave me.

Rei is also so amazing, she breaks the spell that had trapped everyone in the Big Top. So that’s a miniboss down and herself + everyone else saved, not by Usagi, not by Mamoru, JUST ALL REI. Rei even gets the final “THOSE GUYS ARE AWFUL AND FUCK THEM” speech.

While I don’t think Takeuchi is completely putting her heart behind it, this does feel like a grudging personal apology. I ACCEPT JUST AS GRUDGINGLY

For today, if only for today, we have an accord.

I leave you with Rei wearing the cats and carrying Tiny Kitten, because yes.